National and Kapodistrian University of Athens — 190 years, 1837–2027

A WebGIS · 2026

Coastal lagoons
of Earth

Explore Earth’s coastal lagoons through mapped boundaries and measurements. The current dataset covers Greece, with inundation projections for 2100 under two IPCC climate scenarios and local land movement considered where data are available.

Sites mapped 152

Regions covered Greece

Submit a new coastal lagoon or a correction to an existing record. Include its location and supporting source. Add documented measurements and inundation assessments where available.

Prepare your submission

Fill in the blank Data sheet in the XLSX workbook. The Field guide describes every column, its units and examples. You can also use the CSV with the same headers.

Leave unknown values blank. For a correction, include the existing id and explain the change in submission_notes.

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Required fields

Field and column	Format and unit	What to provide
Lagoon name `name_en`	Text	Lagoon name in English or its established international spelling.
Country `country`	Text	Country containing the submitted site. Contributions are not limited to the current geographic coverage.
Administrative area or locality `location_en`	Text	Administrative area or nearest locality in English.
Latitude `centroid_lat`	WGS84 (degrees)	WGS84 decimal latitude. Use a minus sign south of the equator.
Longitude `centroid_lng`	WGS84 (degrees)	WGS84 decimal longitude. Use a minus sign west of Greenwich.
Supporting source `source`	Text	Traceable publication, DOI, report or source URL supporting this record. Include page or figure numbers where relevant.

Optional fields (17)

Field and column	Format and unit	What to provide
Existing record ID `id`	Whole number	For a correction, copy the ID of the existing map record. Leave blank for a new record.
Greek name `name_gr`	Text	Greek name where applicable.
Island `island_en`	Text	Island name where applicable. Leave blank for a mainland site.
Length `length_m`	Decimal (m)	Measured lagoon length.
Width `width_m`	Decimal (m)	Measured lagoon width.
Height `height_m`	Decimal (m)	Reported height used in the lagoon assessment. State the measured feature, method and vertical datum in submission_notes.
Perimeter `perimeter_km2`	Decimal (km)	Lagoon perimeter in kilometres. This column name is retained to match the catalogue.
Area `area_km2`	Decimal (km²)	Lagoon surface area.
SSP1-2.6 sea level rise `rcp2_6_slr`	Decimal (m)	Projected sea level rise by 2100 under SSP1-2.6.
SSP5-8.5 sea level rise `rcp8_5_slr`	Decimal (m)	Projected sea level rise by 2100 under SSP5-8.5.
SSP1-2.6 with land movement `rcp2_6_vec_slr`	Decimal (m)	Projected relative sea level rise by 2100 including vertical land movement.
SSP5-8.5 with land movement `rcp8_5_vec_slr`	Decimal (m)	Projected relative sea level rise by 2100 including vertical land movement.
SSP1-2.6 inundation `rcp2_6_inundated`	yes / no	Documented inundation assessment for 2100 under SSP1-2.6. Enter yes or no only when established. Leave blank if unknown.
SSP5-8.5 inundation `rcp8_5_inundated`	yes / no	Documented inundation assessment for 2100 under SSP5-8.5. Enter yes or no only when established. Leave blank if unknown.
SSP1-2.6 inundation with land movement `rcp2_6_vec_inundated`	yes / no	Inundation assessment including vertical land movement. Enter yes or no only when established. Leave blank if unknown.
SSP5-8.5 inundation with land movement `rcp8_5_vec_inundated`	yes / no	Inundation assessment including vertical land movement. Enter yes or no only when established. Leave blank if unknown.
Submission notes `submission_notes`	Text	Explain corrections, coordinate accuracy, measurement methods, vertical datum and any uncertainty. Identify attachments here.

Site guidance

Perimeter is measured in kilometres, despite the historical column name perimeter_km2. Area is measured in square kilometres.
The scenario fields describe projections for 2100 under SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5. The vec fields include vertical land movement. Supply the assessment source and method in submission_notes.
Do not infer inundation from a single elevation value. Leave assessment fields blank when no documented assessment is available.
Boundary geometry can be supplied as an additional GeoJSON file in WGS84, linked to the lagoon name or existing record ID.

Include contributor names, affiliation and contact details in your email. Attach the completed file and supporting sources manually. The research team reviews each submission before publication.

An interactive Web GIS for the coastal lagoons of Greece — explore each lagoon's morphometry and its projected exposure to sea-level rise under two IPCC AR6 climate scenarios.

What you can do here

Browse all 152 lagoons on the map; click any marker for a detail card with a mini-map of the polygon.
Filter by location, island, or projected inundation status; combine filters with a SQL-style query builder.
Open the Statistics tab to see the distribution of any variable across the currently visible set, with histograms, summary statistics, and bar-by-bar drill-down.
Search by name, location, or island; submit corrections or new records via the footer links.

Climate scenarios (IPCC AR6)

Code	Name	What it means
SSP1-2.6	Low emissions	Sustainability pathway with strong mitigation; warming kept below ~2 °C by 2100.
SSP5-8.5	High emissions	Fossil-fuelled development; limited mitigation, warming ~4–5 °C by 2100.

Sea-level rise & vertical land motion

Term	Meaning
SLR	Projected sea-level rise (m) by 2100 under the chosen climate scenario.
VLM	Vertical Land Motion — local subsidence or uplift of the coast. Adding VLM to climate-driven SLR gives a more realistic estimate of the relative sea-level change a specific lagoon will experience.
geocentric	SLR taken straight from the climate model, with no local land-motion correction.
VLM-corrected	SLR adjusted for local subsidence or uplift. Available where InSAR-grade VLM observations exist (~55 % of lagoons).
(SSP-based)	On the inundation column, marks records where no local VLM was available, so the geocentric SSP outcome was used as a fallback.

Morphometry

Field	Meaning
Area	Polygon area (km²).
Perimeter	Polygon perimeter (km).
Length / Width	Maximum lengths along principal axes (m).
Sandspit max height	Highest elevation along the lagoon-enclosing barrier (m above MSL).

How to read each value shown in the panel. All statistics are computed on the lagoons currently visible (after filters and SQL queries).

Numeric variables

Symbol	Name	Definition
n	Sample size	Count of lagoons with a value.
μ	Mean	Arithmetic average; sum divided by n.
med	Median	50th percentile; half the values fall below, half above.
σ	Std. dev.	Sample standard deviation; typical distance of a value from the mean.
min / max	Extrema	Smallest and largest observed values.
range	Range	max − min.
Q1, Q3	Quartiles	25th and 75th percentiles; the middle 50% of the data lies between them.
IQR	Interquartile range	Q3 − Q1; a measure of spread.
g₁	Skewness	Asymmetry; 0 ≈ symmetric; positive ≈ long right tail. g₁ > 1.5 auto-switches strictly positive data to log scale.

Categorical variables

Symbol	Name	Definition
n	Sample size	Count of lagoons with a value.
unique	Unique values	Number of distinct categories present.
mode	Mode	Most frequent value, with its count and share of n.

Plot conventions

Histogram bars: bin counts. Click a bar to list the lagoons in that range.
μ, med: vertical reference lines at mean and median.
Log scale: applied automatically to heavily right-skewed, strictly positive variables (g₁ > 1.5).
Frequency bars: count of records per category, sorted descending. Click a bar to list its lagoons.

Sources & citations

Submit Coastal Lagoons data

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