An integrated platform monitoring shoreline change, coastal habitats, and erosion risk across Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands.
Built on NOAA, USGS, and NASA data, this platform combines satellite imagery, tide records, vegetation indices, and ML-driven risk scoring to track how our coastline — and the salt marshes, dunes, and barrier beaches it sustains — is changing over time. Here's how to explore it:
Each colored polygon is a coastal zone ranked by its ML risk score. Click to see the score breakdown, zone analysis, erosion rates, habitat status, and conservation contacts.
Switch between Erosion Rates, Protected Lands, and Monitoring Stations to see different views of what's happening along the coast.
From any zone, click "Export Report" to download a printable report with the ML risk score, satellite erosion data, habitats, and conservation contacts.
The top nav has tabs for full zone rankings, live ocean data with ML trend projections, methodology, and data sources.
Live and historical data covering Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands
Habitat status updated quarterly from aerial surveys, satellite NDVI, and field monitoring
All 19 monitored zones ranked by erosion severity · click any row to open its detail panel
| # | Zone | Region | Survey Rate | Sat Rate (7yr) | Risk |
|---|
Survey rates: USGS CoSMO · Satellite rates: ESA Sentinel-2 via GEE
Federal, state, and satellite data powering this dashboard
How satellite rates, erosion figures, and risk classifications are calculated
Coastal land-change detection uses ESA Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery processed through Google Earth Engine. For each zone, a waterline is extracted using the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) — a spectral index that separates water from land using the Green and Near-Infrared bands. Land loss is calculated as the area (m²) that transitioned from land to water between the start and end composite of each time window.
Three windows are computed per zone: 2-year (recent trend), 5-year (medium-term), and 7-year (primary reference, 2018–2025). The 7-year rate is used for all ft/yr calculations shown in zone panels.
Converting area loss to linear retreat requires dividing by each zone's calibrated shoreline length, tuned to match published USGS survey rates. Tidal-flat zones (Barnstable, Dennis & Brewster) are reported as ac/yr where a reliable shoreline length cannot be defined.
Each zone is scored 0–10 by a risk model that incorporates OLS regression analysis on historical erosion and satellite data to detect trend acceleration, combined with erosion rate, habitat stress, and threat severity. The model ranks zones so conservation effort can be prioritized where multiple threats overlap, not just where erosion is fastest.
Thresholds: ≥7 = High, 4–7 = Medium, <4 = Low. Zone colors on the map reflect this score.
Ocean data charts (SST, sea level, salinity) include OLS linear regression trend lines with 5–10 year forward projections, labeled as "ML Proj." in the legend.
Cape and Islands Conservation Dashboard (2025). Coastal erosion and habitat monitoring for Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod. Satellite analysis: ESA Sentinel-2 via Google Earth Engine. Live ocean data: NOAA CO-OPS Station 8447930 (Woods Hole, MA). Survey rates: USGS National Shoreline Change Database. ML risk model: weighted multi-factor scoring. Coastal management data: MA Coastal Zone Management.