Olympic Coast Seafloor Ecological Marine Unit Mapping
Esri Ocean Forum
November, 2017
Kathy GoodinRegan SmythMary Harkness
The Need
• Coastal Treaty Tribes in WA co-manage marine resources off the Olympic Peninsula.
• They need consistent spatial data products to support:– Determining Essential Fish Habitat– Improving Ecosystem Based Management– Support Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning
• Information available for defining marine habitat and ecosystem value was inadequate for their management needs.
• Needed a way to standardize and aggregate existing data
Objectives
• Bring existing spatial habitat information into a common framework
• Provide consistent nomenclature for the units
• Create seafloor maps and spatial data products
Source DataSurficial Geological Habitat (SGH) shapefile
Chris Goldfinger Oregon State University Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Lab
Data from 19 sources using multiple methods multi-beam sonar side scan sonar sediment grab samples core samples seismic reflection profiles still and video images
4 Different Classifications Sediment particle size: Folk
(1954) and Wentworth (1922). Geomorphological characters:
Greene et al. (1999) Physiographic Habitat Type:
based on NOAA Essential Fish Habitat types (2005) OSU’s Habitat Type:
Combination of substrate and bottom structure characteristics
Biog
eogr
aphi
cSe
ttin
g
Aquatic Setting
Ecological Marine Units
Geomorphic & structural character of coast or seafloor
BioticComponent
(BC)
Water Column
Component(WC)
SubstrateComponent
(SC)
Geoform Component
(GC)
Structure and features of water column
Assemblages of benthicand suspended/floating organisms
Character & composition of surface and near-surface substrates
Components
Mod
ifier
s
Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS)
Sand Substrate
Beach Geoform
Sand Beach EMUwww.cmecscatalog.org
Methods:Crosswalking
Solutions
• Identified Synonymy: “Gully” = “Channel”
• Create Equivalencies: “Gravel” = “Granule + Pebble”
• Create Co-Occurring Elements:“Cobbley Boulder”= “Boulder/Cobble”
• Create Provisional Units: “Continental Slope (mass wasting zone)”
Situations
• Source unit concept matches but names differ
• Source unit concept is broader than CMECS units
• Source unit concept is finer than CMECS units
• There is no equivalent source unit in CMECS
Document the messiness by assigning confidence measures
Methods: Spatial Data
• Applied CMECS unit attributes to SGH Shapefile
• Derived raster from SGH shapefile using feature to raster conversion tools in ArcGIS 10.3.1 at 30 m resolution
• End Products: CMECS Compliant Geoform, Substrate and EMU maps
Lessons Learned
• CMECS provided a useful tool for standardizing existing spatial habitat data– It would be easier if data were attributed to
CMECS from the start• Having pre-aggregated data was a huge benefit
– It would be better if data producers could contribute directly to an aggregated data set
– Esri’s new ArcGIS Hub has promise for making aggregating and sharing data easier.
Resources
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission• Story Map: http://nwifc.org/• Interactive Map Tool: http://geo.nwifc.org/ocean/
CMECS Unit Catalog: www.cmecscatalog.orgWebsite: https://ocs-iocm-web-ocs-iocm-dev.azurewebsites.net/index.html