Ocean GIS Initiative

June 2012

The Ocean GIS
Initiative
Esri’s Commitment to
Understanding Our Oceans

By Dr. Dawn Wright, Esri Chief Scientist

Table of Contents
3 Introduction 17 Deep Ocean Exploration & Research
3 Understanding Our Oceans 18 Global Oceans
4 The Ocean GIS Initiative 18 Clearwater Seafoods
5 Areas of Focus
19 Strategic Goals
7 Projects 19 Grow the Ocean Basemap
7 The Ocean Basemap 19 Build a More Integrated Elevation Service
8 SeaSketch 19 Provide Intelligent Bathymetry in the Cloud
9 Ocean Health Index 20 Grow Ocean Use Planning Tools
10 ArcGIS for Maritime 20 Expand the ArcGIS for Oceans Resource Center
11 Ocean Use Planning Portal 21 Convene an Oceans Summit
13 Benthic Terrain Modeling 21 Update and Support the Arc Marine Data Model
13 NOAA Projects 22 Develop Vertical, Time-Dependent Data Transformations
22 Improve Support for Multidimensional Data and
15 Partnerships Analyses
15 Quality Positioning Services
23 Support Ocean Numerical Models
16 University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and
Ocean Mapping
16 Danish National Survey and Cadastre
16 Restore America's Estuaries
16 West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health
17 World Ocean Council
17 Consortium for Ocean Leadership

Ocean GIS Initiative June 2012 2

Introduction
On a planet where 71 percent of the surface is covered by water, Only 5 to 10 percent of the ocean floor and the waters beneath
the oceans are critical for life itself. They feed us, regulate our the surface have been explored and mapped in a level of detail
weather patterns, provide over half the oxygen that we breathe, similar to what already exists for the dark side of the moon, for
and contribute to our energy and economy. Mars, and for Venus.

An estimated 350 million jobs globally are linked to the oceans.
One billion people living in developing countries depend on fish Understanding Our Oceans
as their primary source of protein. Geographic information system (GIS) technology, which has long
provided effective solutions to the integration, visualization, and
There is five times more carbon stored by coastal habitats than
analysis of information about land, is now being similarly applied
by tropical forests. But there is also five times more pollution in
to oceans. In recent years, our ability to measure change in the
the oceans now due to agricultural runoff than there was in 1960.
oceans (including open ocean, nearshore, and coast) is increasing,
Eighty-five percent of the world's fisheries are categorized as not only because of improved measuring devices and scientific
either "fully exploited," "overexploited," or "depleted." Ninety techniques but also because new GIS technology is aiding us in
percent of the big fish in the oceans are gone. better understanding this dynamic environment. This domain has
progressed from applications that merely collect and display data
Climate change threatens coastal communities worldwide.
to complex simulation, modeling, and the development of new
Less than 2 percent of the oceans is legally protected in parks research methods and concepts.
and reserves, as compared to 12 percent of land areas globally.

Ocean GIS Initiative June 2012 Introduction 3

As a company with the mission to inspire and enable people
to positively impact their future through a deeper, geographic
understanding of the changing world around them, Esri
recognizes that this understanding must involve a strong
commitment to the oceans. Esri has in the last year launched a
major initiative, Ocean GIS, across the entire company. The team
supporting this initiative is composed of Professional Services
staff, GIS software engineers, project managers, instructors,
partners, and others.

The amount of data being collected about the oceans presents a grand
challenge.

The Ocean GIS Initiative
The news is replete with stories of the hazards of hurricanes,
tsunamis, sea-level rise and coastal flooding, shark attacks, toxic
spills, oxygen-poor "dead zones," and even modern-day pirates.
The oceans can be a dangerous place, and mitigating these
dangers requires a commitment to science-based understanding.
The Esri ocean GIS team.


The Ocean GIS initiative has also been motivated in great part Areas of Focus
by the need to provide effective mapping tools and techniques
Esri's Ocean GIS initiative is developing mapping and spatial
to respond to recent disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon
analysis tools, geospatial data, associated resources, and
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Tohoku-Oki earthquake
engagement with the oceans community in five main areas:
and tsunami in Japan. It is also motivated by a sincere desire to
assist in the implementation of the US National Ocean Policy, • Research and Exploration
particularly in the area of coastal and marine spatial planning
• Seafloor mapping and sampling, geomorphological
(CMSP), for which GIS provides a crucial decision support engine.
studies, and tectonophysics
As part of this initiative, Esri is expanding from an initial emphasis
• Benthic habitat mapping for estimating species abundance,
on nautical chart production and applications for commercial
identifying essential fish habitat, and ultimately conserving
shipping, maritime defense/intelligence, and offshore energy
sensitive or endangered areas
(e.g., oil and gas, wind energy) to ocean science and resource
management. Esri is pursuing a greater engagement with • Shoreline analysis, including calculation of rate-of-change
the ocean science community, as complex ocean data are statistics from multiple shoreline positions to analyze
increasingly used to inform the responsible use and governance historical shoreline change
of the oceans, as well as effective management and conservation.
• Climate change, including measuring or simulating the
Although Esri's engagement with coastal and ocean resource potential impacts of sea-level rise on shorelines and
managers and conservationists is deep and will continue, wetlands, impacts of storms due to increasing ocean
inconsistencies in ocean data models, formats, standards, tools, temperatures, impacts to ecosystems due to increasing
services, and terminology exist and will be addressed by the ocean acidification, and global energy transfer
initiative. In addition, a paradigm shift is driving an evolution
• Hazards, including the analysis of risk and potential loss of
from desktop and server enterprise solutions into a Software as
buildings and infrastructure due to hurricane winds, coastal
a Service (SaaS) model in the cloud, and the Ocean GIS initiative
floods, tsunamis, and nearshore or onshore earthquakes
builds on this important shift.


• Ecosystems and Environment • Fish habitat and distribution for quote-based management
systems
• Coral reef health and structure, mangrove assessment,
estuary restoration, interaction of coastal ecosystem • Aquaculture-related disease and value tracking
services, and management of seascape to optimize
• Analysis of fishery closure areas, protected resources, Gulf
services
Coast Environmental Sensitivity indexes, at-risk species,
• Coastal and pelagic animal tracking and marine mammal and federal status to illustrate some of the environmental
genomics impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill

• Marine debris mapping and tracking, especially in situ, as • Recreation and Adventure
small plastics are not detectable with satellite imagery
• Professional and amateur boat racing, voyages for various
• Coastal Protection and Marine Spatial Planning causes, and ocean-based sporting events that can benefit
from live, map-based tracking of assets and participants
• National Ocean Policy Regional Ocean Partnership
mandates • Crowdsourced data from recreational vessels

• Marine protected area design and designation

• Offshore wind, wave, and tidal energy development

• Beach and recreational fisheries access

• Fisheries and Aquaculture Management

• Mapping of US fishery management plans and boundaries
of groundfish essential fish habitat

• Analysis of trends in nearshore and estuarine capture of
fisheries globally

• Aquaculture optimization and permitting


Projects
Esri is already engaged in a wide variety of projects supporting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); the
the Ocean GIS initiative. Some of these are highlighted below. Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS); the Seafloor Mapping Lab
(SFML) of California State University, Monterey Bay; the University
The Ocean Basemap of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping
(UNH-CCOM); Oregon State University; the National Geographic
On World Hydrography Day 2011, Esri officially released the
Society; and DeLorme, NAVTEQ, and Esri.
world's first ocean basemap on ArcGIS Online. The focus of
the basemap is to provide the best possible cartographic
representation of authoritative bathymetric data, as well as ocean
floor feature names; water body names; and, in certain regions,
derived depth values in meters. Release of the Ocean Basemap
represents a crucial first step in the establishment of an ocean
GIS.

A variety of authoritative data providers have already contributed
to the Ocean Basemap project. Chief among these is the General
Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), an international
consortium operating under the auspices of the International
Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. GEBCO provides
the world's most trusted publicly available 1 km resolution
bathymetry data, as well as a complete gazetteer of global ocean
floor feature names. Other authoritative providers include the
Detail of the Gulf of Mexico from Esri's ocean basemap.

Ocean GIS Initiative June 2012 Projects 7

aggressively pursuing additional content for the Ocean Basemap
through a variety of channels.

SeaSketch
Esri is working in collaboration with Will McClintock of the
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), Center for Marine
Assessment and Planning to deliver a cutting-edge decision
support tool for effective ocean planning for a range of end
users, including government, industries, and regional institutions.
UCSB is nearing completion of the initial version of SeaSketch, a
web-based ocean geodesign platform that will be accessible via
ArcGIS Online.

SeaSketch greatly extends the capabilities of the well-known
Recent additions to ocean basemap bathymetry contributed by the
Canadian Hydrographic Service. MarineMap used in support of science-based and stakeholder-
driven marine protected area network planning throughout
The Ocean Basemap is the clear foundation for an ocean GIS, as California. It will incorporate a much larger suite of spatial
any individual or organization involved in maritime operations, analytics, including spatial dimensions of trade-offs among
ocean science, ocean conservation, or ocean management potentially conflicting resources, services, sectors, and times.
can deploy feature overlays or web services, such as maritime Regardless of technical or scientific ability, users of SeaSketch
boundaries, energy infrastructure, shipping activity, subsea will be able to view map data from authoritative sources from all
geology, ocean surface and water-column observations, and over the world (e.g., distributions of habitats, energy resources,
nautical charts, to dynamically mash up with the bathymetry. GIS infrastructure, maritime boundaries). Using these maps as a
specialists focused on land problems are also expressing great reference, users will then be able to sketch, save, and share
interest in the Ocean Basemap as an important step toward management plans and discuss them with other users via a
an integrated terrain model for the entire planet. Esri is also facilitated chat forum tied directly to their maps. In addition, they
will be able to build support for their plans based on scientific


merit, particularly by way of submitting the spatial features of
the plan to a biological-economic model of trade-offs between
ecosystem services (tourism, conservation, energy development,
lobster fishing, whale migration corridors, etc.) in relation to
potential management strategies.

SeaSketch map interface with forum categories.

Ocean Health Index
The Ocean Health Index (OHI) is a project cofounded by
Conservation International, the National Geographic Society,
and the New England Aquarium with the ambitious goal of
establishing a new world standard for measuring ocean health
Opening page of SeaSketch prototype.


by representing that health as a single number. The index is ArcGIS for Maritime
designed to take the pulse of the oceans to provide a quick set
ArcGIS for Maritime is a comprehensive geospatial platform for
of vital signs (i.e., indicators that measure the intensity of the
chart production and nautical and bathymetric data management.
most urgent ocean stressors, including climate change, ocean
The package enables professional-grade product and service
acidification, overfishing, habitat degradation, invasive species,
support for the management of ocean GIS. As a result, it can
loss of biodiversity, pollution, and eutrophication). This will aid
be used to efficiently generate a variety of navigational and
managers, policy makers, and the public in quickly diagnosing
nonnavigational products in compliance with industry and
where problems lie and identifying possible solutions. The
organizational standards and requirements. This package
project therefore seeks to bridge that important science/policy
supports a wide variety of users in port management, maritime
maker divide and is thus featured prominently in a series of
transport, ocean science, coastal resource management, nautical
informative articles within the society, policy, and economy
chart production, and maritime defense. Some of the tasks
journal Pacific Standard.
supported include building, maintaining, and creating standard
The development of the OHI is guided by an advisory
committee and steering committee of the world's leading marine
ecologists and assisted by 12 scientific staff. The process has
started with identification of 10 public goals broadly agreed
on by international consensus (shoreline protection, tourism
and recreation, clean waters, biodiversity, seafood provision,
subsistence harvest, natural products, carbon storage,
livelihoods, and sense of place). Based on these goals, a set
of indicators is in development to consistently and reliably
measure the health of the oceans and coasts across a variety
of different contexts: data poor and data rich, tropical and
temperate, regional and global. Ultimately, these indicators will
be incorporated into a single index number that will be calculated
annually for the entire globe as well as at smaller regional sites.
ArcGIS for Maritime concept.


nautical charts; managing, visualizing, and sharing bathymetric biologists, regional fisheries organizations, state agencies,
data; and managing multiuser discovery and access to massive nonprofit and conservation organizations, mission planners for
collections of ocean and coastal information. NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Coast Guard, the DOI, and the
ArcGIS for Maritime includes workflows for nautical chart viewing
Department of Defense (DoD). It therefore has Esri's most direct
and converting among International Hydrographic Organization
tie to the US National Ocean Policy.
data transfer standards; quality control/quality assurance; for
management of bathymetric data (load into a Bathymetric
Information System [BIS]; interact with grids, collections, and
metadata; create surfaces, features, and queries; share in various
modes); and for integration with data models such as Arc Marine,
various map services such as the Ocean Basemap, and new tools
as they are developed by the community.

Ocean Use Planning Portal
Esri has developed an ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning portal
based on ArcGIS Online. This is the first ocean-themed variation
on ArcGIS Online with featured content provided by NOAA,
the Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management (BOEM) of the
Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Northeast Regional
Ocean Council. ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning is a collection
of maps, applications, and templates primarily for the coastal
and marine spatial planning community seeking to manage US
coastal and marine resources while also evaluating the impacts
of human use on ocean and coastal ecosystems. This includes
coastal planners, environmental engineers, coastal policy
staffers, economic planners, fisheries research scientists, marine ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning.


In addition, the portal provides resources to many offshore A primary goal of ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning is to provide
energy companies, the commercial fishing industry, and the maps and applications that yield rich supporting information
shipping industry in the planning and management of their and are available as ready-to-use services specifically designed
activities. Similar to ArcGIS Online in general, the portal provides for this sector so that people will spend less time developing
a collaborative environment where users can share examples of and loading data, building maps from scratch, and searching for
their work and their maps and services, as well as map templates, analytical tools to meet their needs.
and other best practices in both the use and provision of ready-
to-use maps and applications for the ocean planning community.

A hallmark of ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning is the many featured
web applications, the most popular of which is one for wind
energy site suitability. This tool, built by Esri in collaboration with
NOAA and BOEM, is designed for offshore energy companies
and regional ocean councils to investigate potential wind energy
development sites. The sample data provided is from the
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, but other regions will be
included in future versions. The tool enables site selection of
outer continental shelf blocks based on multiple criteria (depth
and distance from shore and from shipping lanes, exclusion
of dumping grounds and DoD boundaries, wind speed, and
proximity to critical habitat areas and marine protected areas). It Wind Energy Site Suitability web application linked in ArcGIS for Ocean
Use Planning showing site selection of outer continental shelf blocks
then calculates viewsheds from both offshore and onshore based based on multiple criteria.
on wind turbine height from a single point or within a polygon
that the user sketches online, summarizing the analysis in a
colorful report.


Benthic Terrain Modeling NOAA Projects
The Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM) is an application originally Esri has supported a wide variety of demonstration projects and
developed in 2005 at Oregon State University under a service-based contracts with NOAA line offices, including the
cooperative agreement with the NOAA Coastal Services Center National Ocean Service (NOS); the National Marine Fisheries
(CSC) GIS Integration and Development program. The application Service (NMFS); the National Weather Service (NWS); the
provides a set of geoprocessing tools to analyze benthic terrain National Environmental Satellite, Data & Information Service
for the purposes of classifying surficial seafloor characteristics (NESDIS); and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
that may be in studies of benthic habitat, geomorphology, (OAR). Representative projects include the following:
prediction of benthic fish species distribution, marine protected
• NOAA Coastal Services Center and BOEM: Multipurpose
area design, and more. Esri has placed resources toward
Marine Cadastre
collaborating with NOAA CSC on porting the original code
from Visual Basic to Python for deployment in ArcGIS 10.x as a • NOAA CSC: Development of Story Maps for coastal county
toolbox. In addition, certain functions in the tools will be available planners
as separate web-based geoprocessing services.
• NMFS Northeast Regional Office: Development of a fish count
web application demonstration

• NOAA NOS OCS Marine Chart Division: Ongoing
implementation and production conversion of the NOAA
Nautical Chart System II to ArcGIS for Maritime

• NOAA Coast Survey Development Laboratory: Development
of a new ArcGIS for Server software-based version of NOAA
ENC Direct to GIS


• NOAA GeoPlatform: Addition of various web map and web
feature services in advance of the hurricane season

NOAA GeoPlatform under construction.

• NOAA NMFS Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center: Support
for the development and implementation of various desktop
applications and web-based viewers, including the various
programs within the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division

• National Ice Center: Continued development of the Sea Ice
Prediction and Analysis System (SIPAS) based on ArcGIS for
Server


Partnerships
Esri is leveraging a number of important partner relationships hydrographic and naval agencies. Esri and QPS are now working
to advance the Ocean GIS initiative. A small sample of these together to integrate Fledermaus tools into the geoprocessing
relationships is presented below. framework of the ArcGIS for Maritime solution for 10.1.

Quality Positioning Services
Esri partner Quality Positioning Services (QPS) is a maritime
technology and services provider with headquarters in the
Netherlands, with US-based operations in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, and Houston, Texas. It is a highly specialized company
well-known in the hydrographic, petroleum, and oceanography
communities for its domain knowledge and excellent software.
QPS recently acquired Esri partner IVS 3D, maker of the
Fledermaus scientific visualization system, and is consolidating
product lines. Fledermaus is heavily used at the world-famous
Scripps Institution of Oceanography Visualization Center and is
a de facto scientific visualization standard throughout the marine
geology and geophysics arm of the ocean science community,
including the large international National Science Foundation
(NSF)-sponsored programs Ridge 2000, Margins, and the
Ocean Observatories Initiative. It is also used at many national Fledermaus 3D visualization of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Ocean GIS Initiative June 2012 Partnerships 15

University of New Hampshire Center working with RAE on developing support for a national estuary
for Coastal and Ocean Mapping GIS while also fostering an RAE pilot project at People for Puget
Sound.
Esri is a member of the Industrial Consortium of UNH-CCOM.
This is a consortium for collaborating and developing new
approaches to ocean and coastal mapping challenges. A West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health
recognized global leader in technology, testing, and training in The West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health (WCGA)
hydrographic tools, UNH-CCOM is a cooperative institute funded is a proactive regional collaboration between the governors of
via an NOAA line item, as well as by competitive grants, to California, Oregon, and Washington and their natural resources
perform a broad spectrum of work ranging from Law of the Sea policy staff to more effectively manage "human activities and
surveying (soon to be incorporated into the ocean basemap) to their impact on ocean resources in a way that accounts for
multibeam acoustic backscatter analysis. the relationships among all ecosystem components, including
people and other species and the environment in which we all
Danish National Survey and Cadastre live." This is also a key recommendation of the bipartisan Joint
Ocean Commission Initiative. WCGA is one of 10 official regional
The Danish National Survey and Cadastre (KMS) has been
ocean partnerships (ROPs) nationwide that explicitly advance the
engaged in a project with Esri Professional Services through
objectives detailed in the US National Ocean Policy.
Informi GIS A/S for a pilot implementation of ArcGIS for
Maritime that will enable nautical charting of all areas offshore of Esri played a key role in helping establish a new West Coast Data
Greenland. Network action coordination team (ACT). This ACT will support
the information needs of the existing WCGA ACTs (Climate
Restore America's Estuaries Change, Integrated Ecosystem Assessment, Marine Debris,
Ocean Awareness and Literacy, Polluted Runoff, Renewable
Restore America's Estuaries (RAE) is a national nonprofit
Ocean Energy, Seafloor Mapping, Sediment Management,
organization that seeks to preserve and restore America's
Spartina Eradication, and Sustainable Coastal Communities).
estuaries, marine ecosystems, and wetlands. Esri has been
The ACT will coordinate the activities of three technical working
groups (Data, Information Technology, and Outreach) and consult


with a broader West Coast network of data experts and users in Ocean Drilling Program, and the National Ocean Sciences Bowl.
shaping regional geospatial data coordination activities to inform It is also the program office for the National Oceanographic
regional ocean issues. Partnership Program; the Interagency Working Group on Ocean
Observations; and the Ocean Research and Resources Advisory
World Ocean Council Panel, which provides independent advice and guidance to the
US president's National Ocean Council.
Esri has recently become a member of the World Ocean Council,
a global, multisectoral industry leadership alliance for ocean
sustainability. Of the five working groups of the council (Policy Deep Ocean Exploration & Research
& Governance, CMSP, Operational and Technical, Regions, and Deep Ocean Exploration & Research (DOER) was founded in
Science), Esri will be most involved in the Science and CMSP 1992 by Sylvia Earle as a marine consulting firm. The scope of
groups to "coordinate cross-sectoral ocean industry efforts the company has expanded to customized design and building
to call for, and participate in, expanded, improved and better of submersibles for ocean science and all manner of subsea
coordinated ocean science [and CMSP], especially in relation to robotics and related instrumentation, field operation support,
climate change." and training. DOER is currently focused on Project Deepsearch,
an ambitious endeavor to build a human-occupied submersible
Consortium for Ocean Leadership capable of full ocean depth, providing unlimited ocean access
to science. It is also currently building a new submersible for
Esri will soon hold affiliate membership in the Consortium for
the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Science
Ocean Leadership, a nonprofit organization that represents more
and Technology (SOEST) and exploring the use of GIS via a
than 100 of the world's premier oceanographic research and
partnership with Esri for processing and mapping data from
educational institutions, aquaria, and industry partners. With its
the submersible, as well as related data from the Pacific Islands
headquarters in Washington, DC, it is a unified, powerful, and
Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS).
widely respected voice on Capitol Hill for the entire US ocean
research and education community. The consortium shapes the
future of ocean science, technology, and education by managing
and coordinating wide-ranging programs such as the Census of
Marine Life, the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the International


Global Oceans population dynamics and overlay spatial and temporal fishing
data with sediment types, survey data, harvest areas, and benthic
Esri is entering into a partnership with Global Oceans, a
habitat. Clearwater Seafoods is looking to expand the use of GIS,
new nonprofit organization that seeks to provide additional
including using it on the bridge of its commercial fishing vessels
seagoing assets to the ocean science community (ships, ROVs,
to manage real-time positioning of the vessels as well as manage
submersibles, containerized lab spaces, analytical instruments,
dataflow from ship to shore, and the organization has partnered
etc.) in the face of shrinking resources via traditional means. As
with Esri and Esri Canada Limited toward this end.
the organization moves into operational mode and engages with
the ocean science community as to how best to use its resources,
the complement of Esri's GIS products, as well as the Arc Marine
data model for structuring, organizing, and analyzing data, will
be an important set of tools that Global Oceans is excited about
leveraging at sea on behalf of ocean scientists.

Clearwater Seafoods
Clearwater Seafoods Limited is a global leader in the seafood
industry and the largest harvester of wild shellfish in Atlantic
Canada. Based in Nova Scotia, Canada, the award-winning
company has built its business around a core commitment
to long-term sustainability and responsible fishing. Always
looking to improve operations, Clearwater invests significantly
in technologies that enable top-quality seafood to be delivered
from ocean to plate. A recent investment in ArcGIS has resulted in
significant cost savings, minimized impact on ocean ecosystems,
and aided the company in meeting the stringent requirements
for Marine Stewardship Council certification of sustainable
seafood. Specifically, it uses ArcGIS to study fish resources and


Strategic Goals
To support a better understanding of our oceans, Esri is Provide Intelligent Bathymetry in the Cloud
focused on improving and expanding its products, tools,
Esri's goal is to provide intelligent bathymetric services in the
services, partnerships, and connections with the broader ocean
cloud by underpinning the Ocean Basemap with the power of
community. Some of the initiatives being pursued toward this
ArcGIS for Maritime—Bathymetry and the BIS therein. A BIS
goal are outlined below.
server would push out additional management functions for

Grow the Ocean Basemap
Esri will continue to build the bathymetry data asset in the Ocean
Basemap via crowdsourcing, with a continued strong emphasis on
authoritative contributions from international hydrographic offices
and scientific institutions. It will also explore and implement the
provision of additional public domain content layers, such as
existing nautical chart services with IHO S-57 symbology, and
global maritime boundaries, offshore energy infrastructure, sea
surface temperature, salinity, sediment classifications, and more.

Build a More Integrated Elevation Service
Esri will expose the Ocean Basemap as part of the World
Elevation Service, making it a truly integrated "land and ocean"
elevation service.

Esri's vision for bathymetry in the cloud.

Ocean GIS Initiative June 2012 Strategic Goals 19

bathymetry, such as database rules to sequence and display Expand the ArcGIS for Oceans Resource Center
data by highest resolution, acquisition date, and so forth, as
The ArcGIS Resource Center is currently being reorganized and
well as have the benefit of faster performance. This capability
updated in conjunction with the release of ArcGIS 10.1, and a
would allow the Ocean Basemap to deploy in the cloud a truly
beta version of an ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning resource center
worldwide model of bathymetry.
is already in progress. Work continues on populating this resource
center with additional content under the themes of Research
Grow Ocean Use Planning Tools and Exploration, Ocean Observation, Marine Ecosystems,
Esri is developing an advisory group of key customers to assist Aquaculture and Fisheries, and Recreation and Adventure.
with guiding the growth and further development of ArcGIS for
Ocean Use Planning. Current development projects in this arena
include the following:

• The addition of economic data and demographic data
services, giving all ocean use planning applications the ability
to tie impacts to economy or onshore populations

• Development of fisheries management content and resources

• Development of conservation and protection resources

An ArcGIS for Ocean Use Planning resource center in beta.


Convene an Oceans Summit Update and Support the Arc Marine Data Model
The Esri Oceans Summit, to be held November 7–8, 2012, is The Arc Marine data model, first published in a research
a primary means of advancing Esri's Ocean GIS initiative. This monograph in 2007, has been widely adopted by agencies and
high-level strategy meeting will be attended by intermediate to organizations responsible for our oceans. It is still recognized as a
advanced ocean GIS analysts and developers. valuable model, and adoption of it appears to be ongoing, with
a number of organizations seeking to standardize on Arc Marine.
Day one of the summit will focus on identifying barriers to use of
Esri updates the data model as new versions of ArcGIS are
GIS in ocean science and management as associated functional
released and is looking at the best way to support this model.
requirements. Day two will focus on removal of those barriers
and bridging of gaps via technical solutions in multidimensional
and sensor data formats and in tools, workflows, computing
platforms, and issues of accuracy and uncertainty. A successful
event will result in the establishment of a community of successful
users with a shared vision of advancing the use of GIS in ocean
science and resource management.

Common marine data types, from the Arc Marine data model.


Develop Vertical, Time-Dependent Esri is continually improving support for scientific spatial
Data Transformations and temporal data formats such as the climate forecast (CF)
convention of the Network Common Data Form-4 data model
In collaboration with the USGS and Scripps Institution of
(netCDF-4) and the closely related Hierarchical Data Format
Oceanography, Esri is developing a series of vertical, time-
(HDF). In addition, Esri seeks to better articulate to users the
dependent datum transformations to help researchers transform
rich palette of 3D representation that ArcGIS already contains,
data between ellipsoidal, orthometric, and tidally referenced
elevation data at the shoreline. This is absolutely critical for
coastal surveying, coastal geomorphology, and coastal terrain
models that connect nearshore bathymetry for terrestrial DEMs
that are used for storm surge, hurricane, and tsunami inundation
modeling.

Improve Support for Multidimensional
Data and Analyses
Satellites can clearly map the ocean surface, and acoustic
sensors can map the ocean floor, but ocean scientists currently
have a limited view of the water column between the ocean
surface and the ocean floor. There is a critical need to study
the internal structure of features in the water column such as
plumes (hydrothermal vent plumes, oil well plumes as in the Gulf
of Mexico spill) or schools of fish to obtain fish stock dynamics, The importance of visualizing the water column (aka "midwater" above
the ocean floor), as shown by this screen capture of an output of the
spawning grounds, seasonal habitats, and the impact of climate Fledermaus midwater mapping tool over the source of the Deepwater
change on these. To exploit water column data, an efficient Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The visualization was produced by
UNH-CCOM, courtesy of http://ccom.unh.edu/project/deepwater-horizon.
means of reading, processing, and analyzing the data is required. It shows acoustic backscatter data over the wellhead collected after it was
successfully capped in mid-July 2010. Although the wellhead was indeed
capped, the visualization suggests a small amount of natural gas was still
escaping.


such as features, TINs, vectors, multipatches, arrays, and the like;
consideration of the voxel data structure; and continued work on
handling point clouds and associated functions on them.

Esri will be adding more 3D analytics in ArcGIS 11, enhancing
all 3D representations to deal with the visualization and
interpretation of scientific data, imagery features, point clouds,
and arrays. This is particularly important in Esri's quest to improve
software functionality for ocean and atmospheric GIS.

Support Ocean Numerical Models
Building a GIS platform that various kinds of numerical modelers
could use to associate their efforts would provide a kind of
geospatial fabric to interrelate the models. One of the most
widely used models in the oceans space is the Regional Ocean
Modeling System (ROMS), yet models such as ROMS pose great Example of how ocean models are often not uniformly spaced, as grids
may be composed of unstructured triangles (left) or structured curvilinear
challenges for GIS, as they are often not uniformly spaced and grids (right).
may be composed of either unstructured triangles or structured
(Courtesy of Rich Signell, USGS)
curvilinear grids. There is a great need for tools to handle these
grids in a more standardized way, allowing the possibility of
standard access to data on the model's native grid. To address
this important issue, Esri is investigating the use of netCDF
Markup Language (NcML), an XML representation of netCDF
metadata, which contains attributes that work effectively with the
third dimension.


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Ocean GIS Initiative

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