Multi Purpose Marine Cadastre Map Viewer

    History

    The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in cooperation with federal and state partners, have created a GIS-based marine information system for the U.S. waters.

    cadastreoverview 

    The Multipurpose Marine Cadastre is an integrated marine information system that provides legal, physical, ecological, and cultural information in a common geographic information system (GIS) framework. All organizations considering an offshore activity can benefit from this comprehensive, visual approach to data analysis. This tool was created to comply with Section 388 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, but is also providing the geospatial framework needed for the broader coastal and marine spatial planning initiative called for in the President’s ocean agenda.

    Audience

    This tool is used by federal regulatory agencies and others who are screening renewable energy sites and other offshore activities. The tool is also being used by people working on regional and state coastal and marine spatial planning efforts.

    Authoritative and Trusted Data Source

    At its core, this data viewer contains the official U.S. marine cadastre, and is the only place where users can see all of the official U.S. boundaries on one map. Similar to the nation’s land-based parcel system, a marine cadastre describes the spatial extent, rights, restrictions, and responsibilities of U.S. waters. All data come from the appropriate authoritative source; these organizations are responsible for data upkeep.

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    Future Direction

    The system is constantly evolving and growing to include relevant issue-driven data, and in the future, the project team will focus on strengthening the biodiversity and human use data, as well as building decision support tools to support coastal and marine spatial planning.

    Technological Innovation

    The Multipurpose Marine Cadastre project takes advantage of the data distribution advances provided by web services, a technology that allows data to reside on servers maintained by the authoritative data sources, and yet these same data can be accessed on demand through the Multipurpose Marine Cadastre.

    State and regionally driven coastal and marine spatial planning initiatives can connect to the Multipurpose Marine Cadastre and be confident in having the most accurate federal data available. This innovative system provides tremendous efficiences for all levels of government and contributes to a national coastal and marine spatial planning framework

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