Data Management Plan

This data set contains vector polygons for locations of historical sites; vector lines or locations of natural gas and intrastate pipelines, bridges, rail routes, and tunnels; and vector points depicting airports, abandoned vessels, beaches, EPA facilities, heliports, historical sites, NOAA facilities, waste disposal, and wash over sites in Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Coasts of Maryland and Virginia.

As a whole, the ESI data characterize the marine and coastal environments and wildlife by their sensitivity to spilled oil, and include information for three main components: shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources. The entirety of the ESI Human-Use data layers consists of: PARKS-MANAGED AREAS Polygons, Points; NAVIGATION-MARINE Polygons, Points, Lines; POLITICAL-JURISDICTIONAL Polygons, Points, Lines; RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Polygons, Points; SOCECON Polygons, Points, Lines; and NATURAL HAZARD Polygons.

This reflects the extent of all land and water features included in the overall Chesapeake Bay and Outer Coasts of Maryland and Virginia 2016 ESI study region. The bounding box for this particular feature class may vary depending on occurrences identified and mapped.

Process Steps:

• 2016-09-01 00:00:00 - This atlas is the second edition of two separate first edition atlases, Virginia (2005, #25) and Maryland (2007, #47). Due to imagery inconsistencies and data precision the spatial accuracy of socioeconomic point data could appear skewed. Sources of data used to depict human-use resources in this data layer include: 1) Locations of airports, airfields, landing strips, heliports, etc. were downloaded from the National Transportation Atlas Databases maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration; 2) Data on locations of abandoned and derelict vessels comes from NOAA\x92s Office of Coast Survey Automated Wrecks and Obstructions Information System (AWOIS); 3) Locations of recreational beaches used for activities such as swimming, sun-bathing, fishing, etc. were mapped from expert knowledge; 4) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) facility locations represent facilities that maintain risk management plans describing their hazards and prevention activities as required by the EPA Risk Management Plan (RMP), facilities that manufacture, process, or use certain chemicals in amounts above established levels regulated by the EPA Toxic Release Inventory System (TRIS) program, facilities with permits from the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), and facilities that the EPA has identified and monitors for storing certain quantities of oil (OIL). The data were provided by EPA to NOAA's Emergency Response Division; 5) Historical sites were depicted from sites in the National Park Service (NPS) National Register of Historic Places (2007) and Maryland State Historic Preservation Office (The Maryland Historical Trust); 6) Locations of NOAA facilities were digitized as points from address matching and verified with Google Earth imagery; 7) Locations of ocean disposal sites for dredged material removed from the bottom of waterbodies in order to maintain navigation channels and berthing areas were provided by NOAA\x92s Ocean Service, Office of Coastal Management; and 8) Washover locations are represented by points that were digitized from ESRI World Imagery by Research Planning, Inc. at a scale of 1:8,000. A washover, or washover fan, is a relatively flat surface on the top of a barrier spit complex that slopes gently landward. It is usually created when water, forced landward by breaking waves, flows across the top of the barrier spit during high spring tides or storms. This process creates a flattened-off surface along which sand is transported across the top of the spit into the standing water (lagoon) or marsh landward of the spit. The resulting deposit usually has a fan-like shape. The above digital and/or hardcopy sources were compiled by the project biologist to create the SOCECON_POINT data layer.
• 2016-09-01 00:00:00 - Sources of data used to depict human-use resources in this data layer include: 1) Natural gas inter/intrastate lines were provided by the U.S. Energy Information Association (USEIA); 2) Bridges were provided by NOAA Department of Commerce (DOC) National Ocean Service\x92s (NOS) Continually Updated Shoreline Product (CUSP) and also NOAA National Geodetic Survey\x92s (NGS) Composite/National Shoreline Product; 3): Locations of railways were downloaded from the National Transportation Atlas Databases, maintained by the Department of Transportation; and 4) Locations of tunnels were digitized as lines from information provided by Virginia Department of Transportation and Maryland Transportation Authority and verified with Google Earth imagery by Research Planning, Inc. The above digital and/or hardcopy sources were compiled by the project biologist to create the SOCECON_LINE data layer.
• 2016-09-01 00:00:00 - Historical sites were derived from locations in the National Park Service (NPS) National Register of Historic Places (2007) dataset and the Maryland State Historic Preservation Office (The Maryland Historical Trust). The above digital and/or hardcopy sources were compiled by the project biologist to create the SOCECON_POLY data layer.
• 2016-09-01 00:00:00 - Depending on the type of source data, three general approaches are used for compiling the data layer: 1) information gathered during initial interviews and from hardcopy sources are compiled onto U.S. Geological Survey 1:24,000 topographic quadrangles and digitized; 2) hardcopy maps are digitized at their source scale; 3) digital data layers are evaluated and used "as is" or integrated with the hardcopy data sources. See the Lineage section for additional information on the type of source data for this data layer. The ESI, biology, and human-use data are compiled into the standard ESI digital data format. A second set of interviews with participating resource experts are conducted to review the compiled data. If necessary, edits to the SOCECON_POINT data layer are made based on the recommendations of the resource experts, and final hardcopy maps and digital data are created.

Data can be accessed by downloading the zipped ArcGIS geodatabase from the Download URL (see Distribution Information). Questions can be directed to the ESI Program Manager (Point Of Contact).