South Carolina 2015 ESI Parks and Managed Areas for Oil Spill Sensitivity

2015 data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration characterizes South Carolina's marine and coastal environments by their sensitivity to spilled oil. The dataset contains vector polygons and points depicting parks, managed areas, military sites, wildlife refuges, and other human-use resources. It is part of a larger Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) collection covering shoreline habitats, biological resources, and human-use resources.

Use Cases

• Modeling oil spill impacts on coastal recreation areas based on park and managed area locations.
• Assessing environmental sensitivity for regulatory planning based on the integration of human-use and biological resource layers.
• Mapping jurisdictional and management boundaries for coastal resource protection based on political and resource management polygons.

Strengths

• Data is part of a standardized Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) framework for oil spill planning.
• Includes multiple human-use resource layers (navigation, political, socioeconomic) for a holistic view.
• Produced by the authoritative National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is from 2015; land use and management boundaries may have changed.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Likely compiled from federal, state, and local management sources for the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI).

Time Range

2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:22:58.685024; freshness should be verified.

Geography

South Carolina, USA