Protecting the diversity and health of marine habitats and the organisms that populate them is a global concern. Globally, over half the stocks of fisheries are fully exploited and producing catches very near their maximum sustainable limits. Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are making surface waters more acidic. A key management strategy to address many issues affecting marine ecosystems is the implementation of marine protected areas (MPAs). MPAs are coastal and open ocean areas that seek to protect natural resources and biodiversity. Increasingly, governments around the world are implementing MPAs that specifically protect valuable ecosystem services such as edible fish, plants and invertebrates. Once established, MPAs can improve educational, research and recreational activities, and secure access to artisanal fisheries that are a way of life for many. California is a leader in the process of designing MPAs that many believe will serve as the model for the rest of the world. We are currently designing MPAs that meet both biodiversity protection objectives while minimizing economic impacts in the short term and in many cases increasing the productivity of the world’s fisheries in the long term. In order to facilitate MPA planning, we propose to develop maps and innovative map-based technologies that encourage people to participate in MPA creation and to maximize transparency in the process.
The Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 mandates the state of California to implement a network of MPAs based on the best readily available science. After the act passed, the State struggled and failed to implement MPAs precisely due to inadequate stakeholder involvement. As a result, the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) of 2004 began convening groups of stakeholders and scientists to design MPAs on a regional basis. Although the MLPAI has proven quite successful, with the implementation of 29 new MPAs in Central California, the entire design process will not be complete until 2012. Currently, the MLPAI is conducting monthly meetings of stakeholders from Southern California.
Designing MPAs requires the consideration of a wide variety of geospatial information, such as the location of critical habitats (e.g., rocky substrate and kelp forests), coastal access points (e.g., harbors and kayak launch sites), extractive activities (e.g., commercial and recreational fishing sites), and the distribution of marine life (e.g., sea lion haulouts and bird breeding sites). Furthermore, MPA design is increasingly stakeholder driven. That is, legislative bodies have discovered that the successful design and implementation of MPAs must involve the individuals that are directly impacted by the state of our oceans, such as fishermen, divers, kayakers, surfers, teachers, scientists, and conservationists. And, because stakeholders have disparate opinions about how and where MPAs are placed, the design process includes a great deal of place-based discussion that currently cannot be referred to in a map-based environment.
The MarineMap decision support tool has been developed in response to the specific needs of average, non-technical stakeholders as they collaboratively design MPAs. MarineMap is a web-mapping application that allows users to:
Based entirely on Open Source technologies, we have developed MarineMap to be freely distributable and easily adopted by MPA planning processes world-wide. Furthermore, we have designed MarineMap to be extensible and modular so that it may be easily modified for MPA monitoring once MPAs have been established.
MarineMap is the most comprehensive, most user-friendly, web-based MPA design application that we know of. As of December, 2008, MLPAI Stakeholders have started using MarineMap to explore alternative MPA designs in California and the feedback we have received is overwhelmingly positive. In fact, experts in geographic information systems have invariably described MarineMap as dramatically superior to standard desktop GIS applications (e.g., ArcGIS) for drawing prospective MPAs, evaluating data layers, and receiving graphic reports. Based on these preliminary observations, we are confident that MarineMap will prove very useful to MPA design processes around the world.
The MarineMap consortium is comprised of scientists and technologists at the University of California Santa Barbara, Ecotrust, and The Nature Conservancy.
We are currently extending MarineMap to new marine spatial planning efforts and geographies. Versions of MarineMap are being implemented for
- Oregon marine protection planning
- The Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill
- Coastal california monitoring data visualization
- The california current marine threats project
- Renewable energy siting tools
- and more ....