North Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sensitivity Index Maps for Oil Spill Planning

NOAA NCEI compiled geospatial data for shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources to support oil spill planning and response. The collection covers multiple North Atlantic regions, including Massachusetts, Delaware Bay, New Hampshire, the Hudson River, and Rhode Island/Connecticut/NY/NJ. Source data ranges from 1900 to 2005, with atlas compilation dates between 1995 and 2006.

Use Cases

• Modeling oil spill impact zones using shoreline habitat and biological resource layers.
• Planning emergency response routes by analyzing human-use resource data layers.
• Assessing regional environmental vulnerability by comparing ESI data across different coastal areas like Massachusetts (2001) and Hudson River (2006).

Strengths

• Covers multiple distinct coastal regions with specific compilation dates (e.g., Hudson River 2005, New Hampshire 2003).
• Includes three main data components: shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources.
• Provided in multiple GIS formats including personal Geodatabase, shapefiles, and ARC Export .e00 format.

Limitations

• Underlying source data is dated, ranging from 1900 to 2005, with no updates since atlas publication.
• Spatial coverage is limited to specific North Atlantic regions and is not a continuous coastline dataset.
• Source data dates vary significantly by region, from 1969-1995 for DE_NJ_PA to 1900-2001 for RI_CT_NY_NJ.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Collected, mapped, and digitized from various source materials to create regional atlases.

Time Range

Source data ranges from 1900 to 2005. Atlas compilation dates: 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006.

Freshness

Static dataset; last compiled in 2005-2006 with no subsequent updates.

Geography

Multiple North Atlantic coastal regions: Massachusetts, Delaware Bay, New Hampshire, Hudson River, and Rhode Island/Connecticut/New York/New Jersey metro area.