St. Lawrence River Bird Sensitivity Data for Oil Spill Planning, 2021

A geospatial dataset from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration characterizes bird sensitivity to oil spills in the St. Lawrence River. It contains vector polygons and points for wading birds, shorebirds, waterfowl, raptors, diving birds, passerine birds, and gulls and terns. Associated tables store species-specific abundance, seasonality, status, and life history information.

Use Cases

• Modeling oil spill impact zones based on bird species distribution and abundance.
• Assessing seasonal ecological risk based on species-specific seasonality data.
• Planning coastal zone management and conservation efforts based on sensitive biological resource locations.
• Integrating biological sensitivity data with shoreline habitat and human-use layers for comprehensive environmental analysis.

Strengths

• Data is part of a structured Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) framework designed for oil spill response.
• Covers multiple bird guilds including wading birds, shorebirds, waterfowl, raptors, diving birds, passerine birds, and gulls and terns.
• Spatial data is designed to be used with associated tables containing species-specific attributes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias limited to the St. Lawrence River study area.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Likely collected and compiled as part of the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) mapping program.

Time Range

2021

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:27:48.827276; 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).