Sites have been chosen along the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific coasts as representative of shores from a specific region or shore type, e.g cobble barrier beach. Many of these sites also have been used for monitoring physical changes, including rates of erosion and accretion, shoreline migration, cliff retreat, and morphological changes of specific features e.g. dunes. The network of sites was begun in the 1970s. Each monitoring site includes one or more shore-normal survey transects and/or surveys of specific coastal features. Monitoring involves repetitive surveys, which are often augmented by data on surface sediments, vegetation, thaw depths (in permafrost regions) and photography. The frequency of site visits is variable. Key sites may be monitored on a daily to yearly basis, including follow-up surveys after major storms, but others (particularly remote sites in the Arctic) may only be visited once every 5 to 20 years. Repetitive measurements are used to document the impacts of climate change, climate variability (including variability in rates of relative sea-level rise), storm events, sea ice activity, natural evolution, and human activities. In addition to the ground-based site surveys, nearshore morphology and sediments have been surveyed at many sites using boats and other small vessels as well as airborne remote sensing. The long-term record of coastal change has been documented at an increasing number of sites using vertical aerial photography, with the earliest records in some places going back to the 1930s. The earliest survey record in the data base dates from 1912. Increasingly new technology, including satellite imagery with sub-metre resolution, is being used to document shore-zone changes, with ground surveys at a reduced number of sites for survey control and coastal process studies.

The results of repetitive surveys with photographs from selected sites are available on-line to illustrate shore-zone characteristics and rates of shoreline change in various regions across Canada. The information is available on COASTWEB. The Geological Survey of Canada also maintains an archive of aerial coastal video surveys, which are indexed on-line and available on request. Sediment textural information collected at each coastal site is stored in the Expedition Database.