Data Availability:
Environmental Sensitivity Index Atlases &
Hydrology Data Layers

RPI has two primary datasets available on a limited basis for free use by students/faculty and available for purchase by other interested parties: Environmental Sensitivity Index Atlases for the U.S. and some foreign countries, and Hydrology Data layers for all 50 U.S. States. E-mail info@researchplanning.com for more information.

Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Atlases:

ESI data characterize the marine and coastal environments and wildlife by their sensitivity to spilled oil and provides an inventory of sensitive resources for coastal managers and planners. The ESI data include information for three main components: shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources. A more detailed description of the ESI concept is available at this link. Developed from the ESI data is the Gulf-Wide Information System (G-WIS) data set. The G-WIS data is similar in data content to the ESI data, but typically encompasses a larger geographic area.

Digital data sets for coastal U.S. states, U.S. territories and Central American countries include:

Alabama
Alaska (most areas)
California
Connecticut
Delaware/New Jersey/Pennsylvania
Florida (G-WIS)
Georgia
Great Lakes Region
Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands
Hawaii
Louisiana (G-WIS)
Massachusetts
Hawaii

New Hampshire
New York/New Jersey Metropolitan Area
North Carolina
Oregon/Washington, Columbia River
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Texas (some areas)
Virginia
U.S./British Virgin Islands
Honduras
Guatemala
and El Salvador

A list of hardcopy and digital atlases for the U.S. as well as metadata examples can be found at this link.

Digital data layers for most atlases include:

ESI shoreline ranking (shoreline type),

Human Use resources (boat access, marinas, water intakes, etc.),

State and Federal management areas (reserves, preserves, parks, sanctuaries, etc.),

Biological Resources (Bird, Fish, Habitat, Invertebrate, Mammal, Plant, and Reptile resources areas),

and

Relational data tables containing seasonal presence, lifestage, threatened and endangered status, and common and scientific names for mapped species.

Data sets are Arc/Info coverages and info files, with point, line, polygon, or region topology. Most data sets are in lat/long coordinates (Geographic), NAD27, Decimal Degrees.

Hydrology Data Layers:

ArcGIS hydrology data for all 50 states in line or polygon format was derived from the USGS SDTS files. The USGS 1:100,000-scale Digital Line Graph (DLG) data at a scale of 1:100,000 is used to represent hydrography (or surface water features). The DLG data are digital representations of points, lines, and areas of planimetric information derived from 30- by 60-minute intermediate scale quadrangle maps. The data are considered DLG – Level 3 (DLG-3), which means the data contains a full range of attribute codes, have full topological structuring, and have passed certain quality-control checks described in the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s (FGDC) Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata. These files were downloaded from http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/glis/hyper/guide/100kdlgfig/states.html. Information on USGS DLG data is available on the Internet at http://edc.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html.

The hydrography layers should contain the USGS entity-label item and the values that are assigned by USGS (Table 1). USGS uses the entity-label item to store a 7-digit code that describes the hydrographic feature of a particular item.

TABLE 1.

Coverage

Item

Description

Values

XXHypoly*

ENTITY LABEL

USGS Classification code

Numeric seven character

XXHyarc

ENTITY LABEL

USGS Classification code

Numeric seven character

XXHyarc

Flag

Used to indicate which features needed editing

Integer

*Underlined items are required, XX refers to state abbreviation

A hydrography lookup table is used in order to classify the USGS entity_label feature codes with an open-water classification. Email info@researchplanning.com for the complete lookup table.

Data Availability: Environmental Sensitivity Index Atlases & Hydrology Data Layers

Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Atlases:

Hydrology Data Layers:

Data Availability:
Environmental Sensitivity Index Atlases &
Hydrology Data Layers