California Coastal Environmental Sensitivity Index Maps for Oil Spill Planning

Four regional Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) atlases covering the California coastline provide GIS data for shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources. The dataset consolidates maps compiled between 1998 and <2010 by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information to support oil spill planning and response as mandated by the Clean Water Act. Source data ranges from 1959 to 2009, with most data from the 1980s, 1990s, and up to 2009.

Use Cases

• Modeling potential oil spill impacts by analyzing shoreline habitat classifications and sensitive biological resource layers.
• Planning emergency response strategies by integrating human-use resource data, such as managed areas and socioeconomic sites, with habitat maps.
• Creating regional environmental baselines using the standardized ESI symbology and hatch patterns defined in the provided layer files.
• Assessing coastal vulnerability by examining the compiled shoreline habitat data across Northern, Central, Southern California, and San Francisco Bay regions.

Strengths

• Consolidates four regional atlases (Northern, Central, Southern California, San Francisco Bay) into a single product.
• Provides data in multiple GIS formats including personal geodatabase, shapefiles, and ARC Export .e00 for compatibility.
• Includes extensive metadata documenting source data dates ranging from 1959 to 2009.

Limitations

• Underlying data have not been updated since the atlas publication dates (1998 to <2010), making some information temporally stale.
• Source data is heterogeneous, with dates ranging from 1959 to 2009, introducing potential inconsistencies across regions.
• Primary use is for planning; maps explicitly state they should not be used for navigational purposes.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Data collected, mapped, and digitized from various sources for oil spill planning, originally released as a DVD product.

Time Range

Source data range: 1959 to 2009. Compilation dates: 1998 to <2010.

Freshness

Static dataset; last updated 2009-12-31.

Geography

California coastline, divided into Northern, Central, Southern regions and San Francisco Bay.