Jordan Gass, Hugo Selbie and Charlie Wahle National Marine Protected Areas Center
ESRI Ocean Forum November 6, 2013
New pictures
The Marine Protected Area Inventory
National Marine Protected Areas Center marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov
Outline
• What is the MPA Inventory?
– Purpose – Data
• How it’s used
• Future directions
– Linking sites and programs – MPA accessibility
– Ecological representativeness
– Future of the MPA Viewer
Why Inventory MPAs?
• Many types of protected areas
• Marine jurisdictions overlap
• MPA data sources are disparate
• Management authorities often based on resources
Federal State, Commonwealth, Territorial
• National Marine Sanctuaries
• National Estuarine Research Reserves
• National Parks
• Maritime Memorials
• National Seashores
• National Monuments
• National Wildlife Refuges
• Marine Life Conservation Districts
• Aquatic Preserves
• Areas of Special Biological Significance
• Ecological Reserves
• Critical Habitats
• Marine Conservation Areas
• Research Reserves
• Coastal and Marine Parks
• Create comprehensive picture of MPAs nationwide
• Inform ocean managers and policy-makers to understand where MPAs are located and what they protect
• Engage local, territorial, tribal, state, and federal programs to share information and work together
• Inform coastal and marine spatial planning
Why Inventory MPAs?
MPA Inventory
• Spatial Catalog of > 1,700 Sites
• GIS Boundaries
• Classification attributes – Conservation Focus – Level of Protection – Fishing Restrictions
– Management Plan Type – Legal Authority
• Ecological Resources
• Cultural Resources
Ecological and Cultural Resources
• Fit an ecosystem into standardized boxes
– Use best available public data online
– Decision rules developed to insure repeatable protocol – Presence/absence
• Generalized high level groupings
– Species groups – Physical habitat
– Biological use areas
– Cultural features
MPA Inventory Structure
• ESRI Geodatabase
– Spatial boundaries – Site and zone data
• MS Access databases
– Classification attributes – Resource presence
• ArcGIS Toolbox
– Analysis and data management tools – Python scripts
– Models to batch scripts
MPA Inventory Distribution
• Published as an annual update (May 2013)
• Downloadable from marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov
– Geodatabase, shapefile, metadata – Tabular data for non-GIS users
• WMS feeds for external users/geoportals
– Published through ArcGIS Server – Multipurpose Marine Cadastre – ERMA
• Online data viewer
Inventory Analyses
• National and regional statistics
– ArcToolbox scripts
– Customized subsets of inventory – E.g. MPAs in California
• Cartographic products
• Responses to partners, public
and media
Sample analyses and outreach
U.S. MPAs by Level of Protection
Only 14% of all U.S. MPAs are no take areas that prohibit the extraction or significant destruction of natural or cultural resources.
No Access 4%
No Impact 1%
No Take 7%
Other+
< 1%
Uniform Multiple Use 80%
Zoned Multiple Use 6%
Zoned w/No Take Areas 2%
93 45 16 5
29 44
181 110
77 8
60 121
274 16
48 92 94 1
346
0 100 200 300 400
Acadian Atlantic Alaskan/Fjordland Pacific Aleutian Archipelago Beaufort/Chukchi Seas Bering Sea Caribbean Sea Carolinian Atlantic Columbian Pacific Great Lakes*
Gulf Stream Hawaiian Archipelago Montereyan Pacific Transition Northern Gulf of Mexico Northern Gulf Stream Transition Pacific Remote**
South Florida/Bahamian Atlantic Southern Californian Pacific Southern Gulf of Mexico Virginian Atlantic
Number of U.S. MPAs by Ecoregion
Most U.S. MPAs (346, or 22%) located within the Virginian Atlantic marine ecoregion. Second most (274, or 18%)located in the Northern Gulf of Mexico marine ecoregion.
• 213 MPAs in California (CA) waters
• About 32% of CA waters out to the U.S. EEZ, are in some form of MPA
• 25% of these MPAs prohibit all take, representing just 0.15% of CA waters out to the U.S. EEZ
• 28% of sites have nesting areas for migrating birds
• Just over half (51%) have an ongoing biological monitoring program
• Only 20% list anadromous fish species California Analyses
SPARC Tool
• Partnership with NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
– SPatial Assessment Resource Characterization Tool (SPARC)
• ArcGIS 10 Add-In
• Select MPA Area of Interest
– Select Comparison MPAs – Compare With All MPAs
• Incorporate variety of data into analysis
– MPA Classification Attributes
– Spatial or Tabular Resources Data
– Tabular Protection Data
SPARC Sample Results
• Kelp is present in 124 km 2 of California waters
• Of the 213 California MPAs, 109 (51%) have kelp resources
• Kelp covers 0.03% of MPA area
• 66 km 2 (53%) of kelp area is within MPAs
• 28 km 2 (23%) of kelp is within
no-take MPAs
Partnerships with MPA Programs and NGOs
• Combine ecological analyses with management spin
• Illustrate utility and flexibility of the Inventory
• Sample projects:
– National Wildlife Refuge Marine Protected Areas (NWR)
– MPAs and Wildlife Hotspots in the California Current (PRBO)
International Coordination
• USGS GAP Program
– PAD-US
– Assign GAP status codes to MPAs
• IUCN
– Incorporate into WDPA (protectedplanet.net)
– Assign IUCN categories to US
MPAs
Future Directions:
Revising The MPA Viewer
• The dilemma:
– The MPA viewer is popular, but can’t be updated – Based on Adobe Flash
• The goal:
– Keep the dynamic feel
– Allow for additional data exposure
– Show Inventory data and derived stories
• Possible solutions:
– Storymaps
– ArcGIS online
Future Directions:
Linking MPAs thematically and geographically
• Identify sites with common problems, e.g. climate change, sea level rise
– Pick appropriate indicators likely affected by sea level rise – Map how many of these
indicators a sites/ MPA programs have
• Create linkages across
programs, to share problems and solutions
• Outreach
Future Directions:
Identifying MPA Access
• MPA Inventory links MPAs to coastal communities via targeted stories and products
– Disseminate products using ArcGIS online services
• MPAs near population centers
– What is your nearest MPA?
– What can you do in local MPAs?
– Demonstrate the importance of MPAs
Future Directions:
How ecologically representative are US MPAs?
• Executive Order (EO) 13158 called for the establishment of “a
scientifically based,
comprehensive national system of marine protected areas (MPAs) representing diverse U.S. marine ecosystems.”
– Identify where major resource groups exist in U.S. MPAs
– Use SPARC tool with spatial resources data to describe representativeness patterns – Compare resource protection
afforded by MPAs
Example 3. Presence/absence of various habitat groups in national system member MPA's in the South Florida/Bahamian Atlantic Ecoregion
National System MPA Barrier
Islands Beach Coral Reef (Tropical) Mangrove
Forests Sand DunesSeamounts
/Pinnacles Sea Grass Submarine
canyons Wetlands/
MudFlatsKelp &
Algae Rivers/ Streams
Biscayne National Park Dry Tortugas National Park
Everglades National Park Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge Key West National Wildlife Refuge National Key Deer Wildlife Refuge Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve
TOTAL = 10 1 (10%) 7 (70%) 6 (60%) 9 (90%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 10 (100%) 0 (0%) 7 (70%) 4 (40%) 3 (30%)
