Great Lakes St. Lawrence River 2021 Socioeconomic Features for Oil Spill Sensitivity

The Great Lakes St. Lawrence River system, from Lake Ontario headwaters to L'Ile-Saint-Regis Island, is covered by this geospatial dataset. It contains vector polygons, lines, and points representing socioeconomic human-use resources like airports, beaches, and historical sites. The data was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the 2021 Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) to characterize sensitivity to oil spills.

Use Cases

• Modeling potential oil spill impacts on socioeconomic resources like beaches and historical sites.
• Planning coastal zone management based on mapped human-use infrastructure such as airports and heliports.
• Assessing environmental risk along major crude oil pipelines in the St. Lawrence River region.
• Integrating human-use data with biological and shoreline habitat layers for comprehensive sensitivity analysis.

Strengths

• Data is structured with separate attribute tables (SOC_DAT, SOURCES) for detailed type and source information.
• Covers a defined study area along the St. Lawrence River with multiple vector data types (polygons, lines, points).
• Part of a standardized Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) framework for oil spill response.

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 specific NOAA study area.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Likely compiled from authoritative sources for environmental sensitivity mapping.

Time Range

2021

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:23:01.492813; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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