Lake Erie Political Boundaries and Jurisdictional Features for Environmental Sensitivity

The United States portion of Lake Erie, covering coastal Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, is represented by vector polygons, lines, and points. These data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration characterize political and human-use resources like tribal lands and state lines for the 2022 Environmental Sensitivity Index. The data are part of a system designed to assess sensitivity to oil spills.

Use Cases

• Mapping jurisdictional boundaries for regulatory analysis based on state lines and the international border.
• Assessing potential impacts on human-use resources during environmental incidents based on data for tribal lands and Coast Guard units.
• Integrating political data with biological and shoreline layers for comprehensive environmental sensitivity modeling as part of the ESI framework.

Strengths

• Data is structured within a geodatabase with related stand-alone tables (SOC_DAT, SOURCES) for detailed attribute information.
• Covers a defined study area from the Michigan/Ohio border to the New York/Canada border.
• Part of a standardized Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) system for oil spill sensitivity assessment.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in PDF format, which is non-standard for geospatial analysis and may require conversion.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Likely compiled from authoritative jurisdictional and administrative sources for the ESI assessment.

Time Range

2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:32:48.790753; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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