The Digital Earth Africa Coastlines Monitoring Service combines satellite data with tidal modelling to map the shoreline location and the average sea level tide each year.  By providing information on annual shoreline positions and rate of change along the entire African coastline, this unique Service enables trends of coastal erosion and growth to be examined annually at both local and continental scales and identify hot spots of coastlines at risk of significant change.

Available from the year 2000 onwards, patterns of coastal change are updated annually as data continues to be acquired. This allows current rates of change to be compared with that observed in previous years or decades.  The ability to map shoreline positions for each year provides valuable insights into whether changes to the coastline are the result of particular events or actions, or a process of more gradual change over time.  The monitoring service is a valuable resource for evaluating the impact of coastal management, as well as modelling responses to changing conditions such as extreme weather events and human development.

As a companion to the Coastlines Monitoring Service, the Coastlines dashboard (below) is an easy-to-user service that provides at-a-glance national scale summaries for each African country with a coastline.  By providing detailed, country-specific data, the service supports the identification of at-risk communities, infrastructure, and settlements, guiding targeted interventions and informing national coastal adaptation needs.