GIS Analysis of Shoreline Change Using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS)
Shelley Whitmeyer, James Madison University
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection
This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.
- First Publication: June 7, 2017
- Reviewed: July 17, 2017 -- Reviewed by the On the Cutting Edge Activity Review Process
Summary
The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) is a software extension for ArcGIS that allows for automated shoreline change calculations along the coast. The user must supply the shoreline data and the software helps the user create measurement locations (transects) and completes the shoreline change calculations at each location. The result is a visual representation of the shoreline change along a coastline. This representation is far more useful for analysis that one overall average. Unusually high rates of erosion/accretion are easily recognized from the resulting map.
The study location is Rodanthe, NC. The data used in this exercise is the sample data provided by the USGS.
Topics
Geoscience Grade Level
High School (9-12), College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)
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Audience
This activity was developed for a GIS class of geology majors. The students are mostly juniors or seniors. The activity should take the students 2-3 hours. We began the activity in class and they finished it for homework.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
The students will...
- learn to add a new extension into ArcGIS,
- use the DSAS to calculate the shoreline change, and
- create a map showing a meaningful representation of the shoreline change.
How the activity is situated in the course
This activity was a case study presented to the students during the second half of the semester. At this point, the students had mastered the basic GIS concepts.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
1. Have the students complete a shoreline analysis in ArcGIS.
2. Teach the students how to install and use an external ArcGIS extension.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
- Analyze shoreline data.
- Evaluate the results.
- Create a map displaying the results.
Other skills goals for this activity
Description and Teaching Materials
Student Handout (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 3.4MB May31 17)
Thieler, E.R., Himmelstoss, E.A., Zichichi, J.L., and Ergul, Ayhan, Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) version 4.0—An ArcGIS extension for calculating shoreline change: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008-1278. Data (Zip Archive 319kB May31 17)
Teaching Notes and Tips
The handout shows the students how to calculate the shoreline change using a linear regression. However, there are other statistical options such as end-point rate or net shoreline movement (see page 44 in the users manual). Once the students have completed the analysis as instructed in the handout, you could challenge them to find applications for the other statistics. For example, is your concern is the erosion caused by one storm the end-point rate might be more appropriate.
Assessment
The assessment is based on the map produced. The students should produce a map similar to the one below.
This is the map showing the results of the calculation. The left map shows the historical shoreline locations, the middle map shows the transect locations where the shoreline change is measured, and the right map shows the transects color coded by the amount of shoreline movement.
![[creative commons]](/images/creativecommons_16.png)
Provenance: Shelley Whitmeyer, James Madison University
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
References and Resources
Data and extension from:
Thieler, E.R., Himmelstoss, E.A., Zichichi, J.L., and Ergul, Ayhan, Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) version 4.0—An ArcGIS extension for calculating shoreline change: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008-1278.
DSAS User Guide and Download : https://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/DSAS/version4/index.html
Note: Currently (May 2017) the DSAS does not work with ArcGIS 10.4. This should be fixed by the end of the summer. The tool does work with version 10.3 or earlier.
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