St. Lawrence River Benthic Sensitivity Polygons for Oil Spill Response

Vector polygons represent submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario to L'Ile-Saint-Regis Island. This data is part of the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) for the Great Lakes, characterizing coastal environments by their sensitivity to oil spills. The dataset was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling oil spill trajectory impacts based on sensitive benthic habitat locations.
• Prioritizing coastal protection and cleanup resources based on biological sensitivity data.
• Analyzing the distribution and seasonality of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV).
• Integrating benthic data with shoreline and human-use layers for comprehensive environmental risk assessment.

Strengths

• Data is part of the standardized NOAA Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) framework.
• Includes associated tables with species-specific abundance, seasonality, and life history information.
• Covers a defined study area from Lake Ontario to L'Ile-Saint-Regis Island.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Primary file format is PDF, which may complicate direct geospatial analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Likely derived from field surveys, remote sensing, or existing biological inventories.

Time Range

Data content appears to represent conditions for the 2021 ESI assessment.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:28:17.116211; freshness should be verified.

Geography

St. Lawrence River from the headwaters of Lake Ontario, northeast to the western portion of L'Ile-Saint-Regis Island (CA).