Chapter 6. Data
67 States
are measured from the official U.S. baseline, recognized as the low- water line along the coast as marked on the NOAA nautical charts in
accordance with the articles of the Law of the Sea. The Office of Coast Survey depicts on its nautical charts the territorial sea 12 nm, contigu-
ous zone 24 nm, and exclusive economic zone 200 nm, plus maritime boundaries with adjacentopposite countries. Digital data is available in
a variety of formats, including a dynaminc OpenGIS˝o
Web Map Service WMS
which can be accessed online
.
2. Bathymetry: nearshore lidar, medium and high resolution. NOAA’s Na-
tional Center’s for Environmental Information NCEI archives data and
products that illustrate the depths and shapes of underwater terrain with underwater maps, digital elevation models, multibeam data, and more.
These include:
• Bathymetric Data Map Interface
• Digital Elevation Models
• ETOPO Gridded Relief Models
• International Hydrographic Organization Data Center for Digital Bathymetry
• Ocean and Coastal Mapping Data for Northeast U.S. Sandy Recovery
Many of these datasets, including those conducted by NOAA’s National Ocean Service NOS are publically available via REST services through
NOAA’s GeoPlatform
. Coastal topographic lidar datasets, including topo- bathy lidar is available from NOAA’s Office of Coastal Management’s
DigitalCoast.
3. Shoreline: NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey provides the Continually
Updated Shoreline Product CUSP and the National Shoreline through the Shoreline Data Explorer. CUSP is also available as an
OGC WMS .
4. Fishing Data: Content of the dataset: Vessel Trip Report and Vessel Mon-
itoring System databases in collaboration with commercial fishing stake- holders to illustrate the distribution timing, and intensity of commercial
fishing activity, with attributes for gear type and harvest species.
5. Marine Wildlife whales, birds, turtles, bats data: distribution, proba-
bility of occurrence, and migration paths. Datasets on marine mammals and turtles are available from NOAA’s Office of Coastal Management’s
Chapter 6. Data
68 DigitalCoast
. Additionally, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service NMFS produces GIS data depicting
areas designated as critical habitat for species listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered
Species Act.
6. Benthic Habitat: corals, seagrasses, submerged aquatic vegetation SAV.
Benthic habitat datasets are available from NOAA’s Office of Coastal Man- agement’s
DigitalCoast . Additionally, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries
Service NMFS produces a GIS Data Inventory on Essential Fish Habitats
EFH .
7. Restricted Areas: Information pertaining to uses of the marine environ-
ment by the Department of Defense for training, classified or restricted areas, with unexploded ordnances, etc. Many restricted areas are de-
picted on NOAA’s navigational charts. NOAA’s ENC Direct to GIS
pro- vides the ability to access NOAA ENC data in a variety of GISCAD for-
mats. ENC Direct provides WMS capabilities for the six different ENC scale bands:
WMSoverview ,
WMSgeneral ,
WMScoastal ,
WMSapproach ,
WMSharbour ,
WMSberthing
8. Vessel Traffic Data: Automatic Identification System AIS shipping data,
maintained channels. AIS data records for U.S. coastal waters are avail- able for download thorough
MarineCadastre.gov for calendar years 2009,
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. Records are filtered to one minute and formatted in zipped, monthly file geodatabases by Universal Transverse
Mercator UTM zone. Vessel Density plots are also available as a map service through NOAA’s
GeoPlatform .
Information about shipping channels can be found on NOAA naviga- tional charts. Both Coastal Maintained Channels and Shipping Lanes
and Regulations are available as national-scale, standardized data sets based on several Federal Geographic Data Committee FGDC and Open
Geospatial Consortium standards from NOAA’s
ENC Direct to GIS :
Coastal Maintained Channels
, Shipping Lanes and Regulations
.
9. Sand, Gravel, and Cobble Mining Locations: Offshore energy and min-
