1. The U.S. Minerals Management
Service Deepwater GIS
Presented By
Boykin Witherspoon, Richard Lawrence, Norman Froomer

2. Where there is no vision, the people perish...
King Solomon

3. U.S. Minerals Management Service
Manages minerals development in US Coastal and Territorial Waters
Documents scientific investigation within US Coastal and Territorial Waters
Generalizes GIS information from raw data collections
Responsible for resources in Arctic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic

4. MMS Information Challenges
Collect/generalize deepwater environmental data
Conceptualize coastal and marine data standards
Manage and document offshore development impacts
Leverage/interpret/visualize environmental data

5. Examples of Environmental Data Generated/Employed by MMS
Physical Oceanography
Gulf of Mexico Cetaceans
Deepwater Shelf Pinnacle Trend Habitat
Benthic Habitats
Pipelines
Dives
Sonar
Imagery
Chemosynthetic Communities
Socioeconomic Parameters
Bathymetry
ESI Species
Platforms
Wells
Transects
Transmissometer
Drifter

6. MMS Deepwater Project Goals
Manage Environmental Studies Information
Integrate Environmental Studies Data into Existing Data Structures
Search and Query Environmental Studies Data
Develop Plan Review Applications

7. MMS Deepwater Project Goals
Manage Environmental Studies Information
Develop a digital standard for studies data
Models studies as hierarchical features
Study Area Extents = Single SDE Layer of “Footprints” that contain and are defined by:
Study Features = Multiple SDE Layers of “Toeprints” defined by:
Attribute tables maintained within the Coastal and Offshore Resource Information System (CORIS) data structure

8. MMS Deepwater Project Goals
Integrate Environmental Studies Data into Existing Data Structures
Gulf of Mexico: Physical Oceanography Program Final Report
Distribution and Abundance of Cetaceans in the North-Central and Western Gulf of Mexico
Lousiana/Texas Shelf Physical Oceanography Program: Eddy Circulation Study
Mississippi-Alabama Shelf Pinnacle Trend Habitat Mapping Study
Northeastern Gulf of Mexico Coastal and Marine Ecosystem Program: Ecosystem Monitoring, Mississippi/Alabama Shelf
CORIS

9. MMS Deepwater Project Goals
Search and Query Environmental Studies Data
Attribute Query
Spatial Query
Relational Data/SDE Layers
Tabular/Spatial Display

10. MMS Deepwater Project Goals
Develop Plan Review Applications
Provide a “directed” interface environment
Provide basic GIS tools
Automate assessment process
Provide configuration files
SDE-layer-based processing
Extendable and Scalable

11. MMS Deepwater Tools: A first step towards achieving Ocean GIS
Extensible tools for Marine Managers
Data searching capabilities for Managers
Backbone for future development
Incorporates advantages of Open GIS
Can be updated with web-enabled data access capabilities available at ArcGIS 8.1
Clear development path