Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management Data Acquisition, Management, and Access Efforts

Sound coastal policy depends on a solid information base. Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) therefore strives to promote and provide access to physical and cultural information through federal, state, and local data development and data sharing projects.

CZM has embarked on a long-term project to develop the Massachusetts Ocean Resource Information System (MORIS). MORIS will be a comprehensive database providing access to the broad range of information necessary to carry out the CZM mission.

CZM also maintains a digital and paper data library that contains a variety of materials that are available to coastal specialists and decision-makers, such as: historic and contemporary aerial photographs, color 1:10,000 orthophotographs, historic shorelines, and eelgrass inventories. CZM is also equipped with a state of the art Geographic Information System (GIS) and aerial photo-mapping technology.