Coastal Services Center

Coastal Ocean and Great Lakes Planning

Managers and scientists acknowledge that ecosystem approaches to management—management that recognizes the interconnectedness between human activities, biological and physical systems, and the interactions between key species—hold the greatest promise for healthy and productive coasts and oceans. To be successful, these efforts must be supported by regional information systems that provide spatially referenced legal, political, and jurisdictional frameworks.

The Pew Ocean Commission, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, and the Bush Administration's U.S. Ocean Action Plan have endorsed regional ocean governance and regional ocean councils as mechanisms to foster ecosystem management.

The GIS I&D program recognizes that coastal managers need information and tools to help them integrate physical, environmental, and policy data to guide an ecosystem approach to decision making. Current projects include the development of location-specific GIS tools for marine managed areas, to support of spatial data standards, and the creation of data and online tools to increase coastal and marine spatial data access.

Data and Information Access for Ocean Planning