Spatial Reasoning for “Terra Incognita” Challenges and Progress of Coastal/Marine GIS

Dawn WrightDepartment of GeosciencesOregon State University

Explornography (n.)

“The vicarious thrill of exploring when there is nothing left to explore”

(John Tierney, New York Times, July 26, 1998)

Images courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum

Ocean Thematic Layers

Graphic courtesy of Christina Massel, Steve Miller, Scripps

Single Beam Multibeam

1-2 K soundingsper survey

500 - 750 K soundingsper survey

400,000 – 1,000,000 K soundingsper survey

Graphics courtesy of NOAA & UNH

Bottom Coverage & Data Density by Survey MethodLeadline

courtesy of the NOAA PMEL Vents Group (NEMO project) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Exploration of Seafloor Spreading Centers

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video decompressorare needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video decompressorare needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aVideo decompressor

are needed to see this picture.QuickTime™ and a

Sorenson Video 3 decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Fine Scale Mapping

• on the order of tens of meters to meters

• features the size of a beer can!

GIS: A Spatial ContextIntegrating Many Parts to See the Whole

Homes

School Districts

Streets

Zip Codes

Cities

Counties

Graphics courtesy of ESRI

Substrate

Bathymetry

Water Column Data

Time and Depth Measurements

Coastal and Boundary Lines

Marine Points

Basemap

Ocean Thematic Layers

Graphics courtesy of Joe Breman, ESRI

Ocean Thematic Layers

GIS: A Spatial ContextIntegrating Many Parts to See the Whole

Graphics courtesy of ESRI

Spatial Reasoning

PlanningPlanningPlanningPlanning

AnalyzingAnalyzingAnalyzingAnalyzing

ThinkingThinkingThinkingThinking

MeasuringMeasuringMeasuringMeasuring DecidingDecidingDecidingDeciding

ScienceGraphics courtesy of ESRI

GIS: A Spatial ContextSeeing the Whole to Manage Places

Seeing the WholeSeeing the Whole Managing PlacesManaging Places

• Estuaries

• Fisheries

• Marine Protected Areas

• Coastal Communities

• Patterns

• Linkages

• Trends

Graphics courtesy of ESRI

Coastal/Marine GIS Challenges

• Lack of data

Dan Fornari, WHOI

Coastal/Marine GIS Challenges

• Scale, accuracy, generalization, time, etc.

• No fixed features in the marine environment– No rigid reference frame– Eulerian vs. Lagrangian (object-centered)– “Mobile computing”

Figure courtesy of Anne Lucas, U. of Bergen, NorwayFigure courtesy of Anne Lucas, U. of Bergen, Norway

Marine Boundaries

Shaded relief image © Ray Sterner, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory

• 2 horizontal dimensions equivalent?– “How long is a shoreline?” – Shoreline according to

whom?

Where is the shoreline?

Different interpretations of the shoreline

Shoreline Depiction Problems

One Grand Challenge …

To find ways of summarizing, modeling, and visualizing the differences between a digital representation and real phenomena

• Uncertainty– no representation can be complete– what the data indicate about the world– what the user believes the data indicate about the world

• Scientific Measurement– the database as one sample from an error distribution

• The GIS Data Model– conceptual description of how our “sampling of the world”

is organized for use by the GIS – objects with rules and behaviors

ArcGIS Marine Data Modeldusk.geo.orst.edu/djl/arcgis

• Relationships with rules, behaviors used in geoprocessing and analysis

• Basic template for implementing GIS projects– input, formatting, geoprocessing, creating maps,

performing analyses

• Control of required data fields, relationships from collection through analysis phases

• Basic framework for writing program code

A Marine Data Model

Implications for Data Collection

Implications for Data Sharing, Networking

Remainder of Symposium

• Biogeographic Assessments– Monaco/Caldow, NOAA

• Benthic Habitat Mapping– Greene et al., Moss Landing Marine Labs

• O.C.E.A.N. Model, Marine Ecology/Economy– Scholz - Ecotrust

• Fisheries Landing Statistics– Watson et al. - University of British Columbia

• Science and Policy of MPAs– Airame - Channel Islands Nat. Marine Sanctuary

• Sustainable Coastal Communities– Wedell & Revell - Oregon State Univ., Surfrider