Lake Erie 2022 ESI Hydrography: Shoreline and Water Polygons and Lines

Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) data characterize the marine and coastal environments of the U.S. portion of Lake Erie by their sensitivity to spilled oil. The HYDROL and HYDROP feature classes contain vector lines and polygons representing the coastal shoreline and hydrography, classified by oiling susceptibility. This dataset was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and covers the coastal areas of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Use Cases

• Modeling oil spill trajectory and shoreline impact based on hydrography and shoreline classification.
• Assessing environmental sensitivity for coastal zone management based on habitat and resource data.
• Creating baseline maps for emergency response planning based on the delineated shoreline and water polygons.

Strengths

• Data is part of a standardized Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) framework for oil spill response.
• Covers the entire U.S. portion of Lake Erie, including coastal areas of three states.
• Includes both linear shoreline features (HYDROL) and polygon-based land/water areas (HYDROP).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Created for the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) of the Lake Erie - 2022 ESI Geodatabase.

Time Range

2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:20:36.937293; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States portion of Lake Erie, covering coastal portions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.