A Forty-year regional-scale dataset of shoreline change and nearshore wave conditions in Southeast Australia

Coastal erosion at wave-dominated beaches, primarily driven by nearshore wave dynamics, poses a substantial challenge for coastal management. While existing datasets from individual beaches have improved our understanding of site-specific coastal morphodynamics, there is a growing demand for regional-scale datasets to understand and predict regional shoreline responses to climate variability. To address this, we present a combined shoreline and nearshore wave dataset for the wave-dominated coast of southeast Australia, comprising over 8,000 cross-shore transects at 100 m spacing for over 300 beaches. For each transect, satellite-derived shoreline positions (1984-2024) and beach-face slopes are provided, alongside hourly nearshore wave parameters (1979-2024) extracted at the 10 m depth contour. Shoreline data have been validated using available field surveys, and wave data have been assessed against offshore and nearshore buoy observations. This dataset provides a valuable resource for developing regional-scale understanding of shoreline variability along wave-dominated and embayed coastlines.