Ocean Management Planning Grid Under the Oceans Act of 2008

A geospatial polygon layer represents the Ocean Management Planning Area as defined by the Oceans Act of 2008. The data consists of a grid with cells measuring 250 meters on each side. It was produced by the organization SCIOPS and is projected into the Massachusetts State Coordinate System.

Use Cases

• Analyzing spatial coverage of the Ocean Management Planning Area using the 250-meter grid cell geometry.
• Integrating the planning area boundary with other marine datasets for regulatory compliance assessments.
• Performing spatial queries to identify which grid cells fall within specific jurisdictional or ecological zones.

Strengths

• Grid cells have a defined and consistent spatial resolution of 250 meters per side.
• Data is projected into a standardized coordinate system (Mass State Coordinate System, Mainland Zone, Fipszone 2001).

Limitations

• The total number of grid cells (rows) and overall dataset size are unknown.
• The temporal coverage and last update date of the dataset are unspecified.

Provenance

Source

SCIOPS, referencing the Oceans Act of 2008.

Collection Method

Created as a GIS data layer gridded from the legal planning area definition.

Geography

Ocean Management Planning Area for Massachusetts state waters, as defined by law.