SPECIAL SESSION: GIS in Support of Marine Protected Areas, Reserves and Sanctuaries
organized by D. Wright
co-sponsored by the GIS, Remote Sensing, and Coastal and Marine Geography Specialty Groups2001 Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting
New York City, 27 February - 3 March 2001
The Channel Islands-ÐSpatial Support and Analysis Tool (CI-SSAT) was developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center with the NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary is involved in a joint federal and state process to develop alternatives for siting marine reserves (i.e., restricted access and/or usage areas) around the sanctuary area. A working group of local stakeholders was formed to use consensus-built criteria and the best available science and socioeconomic information to reach its conclusions. A geographic information system (GIS) Ðbased tool was conceived to allow different stakeholders an intuitive visualization and query mechanism to investigate how different siting locations would impact various resources and areas of recreational and commercial use. CI-SSAT was developed with Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcView 3.2 and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 software. CI-SSAT provides the framework to compile and visualize all the spatial data sets and criteria crucial to siting a marine reserve. CI-SSAT uses a simple suitability algorithm to compute the probability for potential marine reserves, allowing the working group's participants to weight or assign percentages to each criterion based on different perspectives. The group can begin to visualize various management options, weight the quantitative and qualitative benefits/costs of various alternatives, and model the impacts of one alternative relative to another. The tool is scheduled to be used in a public forum in late September. Based on a positive response, the tool will be transferred to other marine protected areas involved in similar community focused processes. Keywords: coastal management, decision support tool, geographic information system
A critical data element needed for work in marine protected areas (MPA) is an accurate location of boundaries. In contrast to their land counterparts, areas in the marine environment are not easy to demarcate. The use of modern mapping technologies, such as geographic information systems (GIS), the Global Positioning System (GPS), and electronic charting display information systems (ECDIS) has highlighted problems associated with precisely locating the boundaries of MPAs. Paper nautical charts and textual descriptions in government documents are no longer adequate for management, permitting, or enforcement activities. Today, technologies such as GPS, ECDIS, and GIS allow ocean resource users to better find, access, and in many cases exploit the marine environment. As resources become more scarce and technologies advance, users begin to "push the envelope" on ocean exploitation. Accurate, useable, and accessible digital boundaries are becoming essential for daily management and protection of ocean resources. To help establish useful digital data that can be used to improve ocean management strategies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has begun to evaluate digital marine boundaries, determine their spatial accuracy and legal implications, and prepare the appropriate and justifiable methodology for generating digital boundaries. This paper discusses issues faced when creating digital National Marine Sanctuary boundaries and how NOAA is working to address these issues in support of resource management. In addition, there is discussion of how this methodology may be applied to the delineation of other MPA boundaries and the implications to state, federal , and international policy. Keywords: marine boundary, marine geographic information systems, marine protected area, national marine sanctuary
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are experiencing ever-widening uses. Employed in conjunction with other techniques, GIS applications can move beyond standard surficial analysis. The majority of the earthÕs surface is covered by water, and data on the vast resources that are submerged can be difficult to acquire. Recent advancements in remote sensing technology have allowed data gathering in sub-hydrological environments. If such underwater data can be gathered with a method similar to ground data and accurately entered into a GIS program it will allow creation of a package with many applications, including planning, management and interpretation of coastal areas. The coastal zones of the world contain some of our most valuable and biologically important natural resources. These areas are also an important source of open space for active and passive human activity. The physical and biological interrelationships are many and complex. GIS, in spite of its developmentally related shortcomings, appears to be an appropriate tool to use in dealing with planning and management issues and problems for resource inventory, mapping, and a host of other uses in these vast areas in bodies of salt water and fresh water. This paper addresses some of the principal difficulties in gathering of digital data in the underwater environment and it explores the realistic portrayal of not only physical dimensions and the diversity of processes and phenomena, but also the temporal dimension. This type of capability has great potential for the planning and management of marine sanctuaries and other existing and proposed marine protected areas. Keywords: marine sanctuaries, coastal-marine GIS
Subtidal coastal environments present unique challenges for geographic information science. To further research, monitoring, and restoration of coastal bays on Virginia's Eastern Shore, techniques were developed and tested for building digital benthic landscapes in the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) and Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge. This project applied hyperspectral remote sensing and digital fathometer data to produce a moderate resolution digital bathymetric model for two coastal bays. Predictive and empirical models were tested on AVIRIS hyperspectral data, orthophotography, and Landsat imagery to retrieve depth, bottom type, submerged aquatic vegetation, and water column characteristics. A bathymetric surface was interpolated from reference and predicted depth data. Nautical charts, boat survey by digital fathometer, and GPS surveys were integrated for calibration and validation. Statistical prediction of depth from AVIRIS was the most accurate derivative. Application of hydro-hypsometry principles to the digital bathymetric model provided a new perspective for benthic habitat identification, tidal flushing, potential shellfish and seagrass restoration, and as a general tool for mapping the coastal aquatic landscape. Keywords: remote sensing-hyperspectral, GIS-digital elevation models, geomorphology-coastal