GL St. Lawrence River 2021 ESI: Parks and Managed Area Polygons

NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration created the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River - 2021 Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) data. These geospatial polygons represent parks, management areas, and Nature Conservancy properties as human-use resources for oil spill planning. The study area covers the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario headwaters to L'Ile-Saint-Regis Island.

Use Cases

• Mapping protected areas for environmental impact assessments based on the 'Parks/Managed area' feature class.
• Integrating human-use resource layers with biological and shoreline data for comprehensive oil spill sensitivity modeling as described in the ESI framework.
• Analyzing the spatial distribution of recreational and conservation lands in the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River system.
• Supporting coastal zone management decisions using vector polygon data for state parks and managed areas.

Strengths

• Data is part of a standardized Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) framework used for oil spill planning.
• Spatial data is designed to be used with related stand-alone attribute tables (SOC_DAT, SOURCES) for detailed metadata.
• Dataset has a specific geographic scope covering the St. Lawrence River 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.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specified study area.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Likely compiled from management and conservation agency records for the ESI assessment.

Time Range

2021

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 13 22:21:21.712827; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Lakes St. Lawrence River System, specifically the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario headwaters to L'Ile-Saint-Regis Island (CA).