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Abstract
The Creation of Digital Representation of National Marine Sanctuary BoundariesTrack: Ocean, Coastal, and Marine Resources
Author(s): Andrew Hulin, Cindy Fowler, Mitchell Tartt
The NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC), in conjunction with the National Marine Sanctuary Program, is currently working toward the development of digital representations of legal boundaries for all 13 National Marine Sanctuaries. While sanctuary boundaries are at present legally described using textual descriptions and geographic coordinates within the United States Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), it has been generally recognized that there is a less than adequate spatial component to this regulatory framework.
As the coastal management community attempts to translate legal boundary definitions to a digitally compatible format for integration with current technologies, a number of inadequacies, gaps, and ambiguities are revealed. Consequently, while the desire for digital representations of sanctuary boundaries has been expressed by a number of parties, the implications of their development have only begun to be examined. A number of general boundary questions, such as legal defensibility and level of accuracy, have arisen during the process of developing digital representations of sanctuary boundaries, and many of these questions remain unanswered.
Geographic information systems allow for both analysis of the legal description within the CFR and for the development of boundary mapping solutions. Several legal definitions of National Marine Sanctuary boundaries have been examined for accuracy, inconsistencies, and errors, and where necessary, revisions or clarifications of the legal boundaries have been developed. Using these and other examples, the process for creation of digital representations of sanctuary boundaries will be presented and discussed.
Andrew Hulin
Technology Planning and Management Corporation at the NOAA Coastal Services Center
2234 South Hobson Avenue
Charleston, SC 29405
USA
Phone: 843-740-1176
Fax: 843-740-1224
E-mail: andrew.hulin@noaa.gov