Barrier islands are dynamic systems that erode and accrete depending on various factors like  storms, sea level rise, underlying geology, and stabilization efforts of the shoreline.  Coastal erosion resulting from these dynamics is a very important issue that can present a major problem for property owners.  To present this NC COHAZ tool, we focus on Nags Head, a coastal North Carolina community that is intimately familiar with erosion. In the map at left, the 1997 shoreline (USGS dataset) can be seen in yellow, and parcel data are overlain on the Google Maps imagery.   Using long-term average erosion rates, the areas of potential future ocean erosion are be mapped.  Purple areas have already by 1997 while areas highlighted in red, green and blue are parcels estimated to be eroded by 2007, 2017 and 2027.  Note, there is considerable variability in the extent of erosion.  Users of this tool must understand that there are some major assumptions in this approach; in reality future erosion depends on many complex and unknown variables.  Nevertheless, if the future is like the past, this mapping tool provides some valuable insights to this hazard.