Shorethat

Shorethat is a coastal-management platform designed to assist monitoring, assessment, and planning of shoreline environments. It aggregates data from remote sensing, in-situ sensors, and crowdsourced reports to provide a consolidated view of shoreline dynamics, flood risk, and habitat status. The platform emphasizes open standards and interoperability with geographic information systems (GIS) and environmental monitoring workflows.

Key components include a data integration engine that ingests satellite imagery, drone-derived maps, tide and wave data, wind models, and sediment transport forecasts; a geospatial analytics module that computes shoreline change rates, erosion hotspots, and flood exposure; a scenario planner that allows users to simulate the effects of coastal defenses, sea-level rise, and storm surge; and a reporting dashboard for public agencies, researchers, and stakeholders.

History and development: Shorethat emerged from collaborations among coastal scientists, urban planners, and software developers in the early 2010s, with initial pilots applied to managed coastlines in several regions. The platform has since evolved to include machine-learning driven trend analysis and an emphasis on data provenance and transparency.

Applications: It is used to support coastal defense design, land-use planning, habitat conservation, and emergency response planning. It enables policymakers to evaluate risk under different climate scenarios and to communicate findings to communities.

Limitations: Effectiveness depends on data quality and coverage; high-resolution inputs can be costly; interoperability requires adherence to standards.