Highlighted Projects
Special Projects supports NOS and NOAA on a variety of long-term programmatic projects and short-term support requests utilizing our three core capabilities: Coastal Resource Assessments, Spatial Information Services, Planning, Collaboration, and Facilitation. Significant projects, popular products (publications, Web sites, posters and data sets) are highlighted below (in alphabetical order). As this is not a comprehensive list, please contact special.projects@noaa.gov if you have a question about any other projects or products.
Coastal and Ocean Resource Economics (CORE) Program
The CORE Program conducts marine-related socioeconomic research for a wide variety of applications and geographic areas. CORE projects include state-of-the-art socioeconomic monitoring in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the first-ever nationwide estimate of participation rates in marine-related recreation activities, an extensive beach valuation effort in Southern California, and many other research activities.
Coral Reef Habitat Assessment for U.S. Marine Protected Areas
Recently, the United States Coral Reef Task Force directed NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program to assess current protection levels of coral reefs within U.S. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and to quantify the area of U.S. coral reef ecosystems protected in no-take reserves. Special Projects, on behalf of NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, has produced a preliminary assessment of the areal extent of coral reef habitats within MPAs, as well as the level of protection afforded these habitats, by using GIS-based MPA boundaries from NOAA’s MPA Inventory and GIS-based benthic habitat data developed by NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.
Date: February 2009
Contact: John Hayes
To download as pdf: Click here
Crowded Coast: Population Trends, 1970-2000 Poster
The poster, "The Crowded Coast, Population Trends: 1970-2000," illustrates population change along our nation's coast. Its purpose is to provide updated population data and trends and is intended to help provide insight as to where the greatest population change has occurred in the last few decades. Census data used on this poster was data downloaded from the STICS website.
Date: December 2004
Contact: Kristen Crossett
For more information and to download as pdf:
http://marineeconomics.noaa.gov/socioeconomics/
assessment/population.html#Poster
Demographic Baseline Report of U.S. Territories and Counties Adjacent to Coral Reef Habitats
This report is a compilation and synthesis of information from existing sources, focusing on recent demographic, economic, and population projection variables of resident populations in U.S. jurisdictions adjacent to coral reef habitats. Variables reported on include: population and density, population and adjacent coral reef habitat, gender, age, place of birth, race/ethnicity, language, education, income, employment, housing, development and tourism.
Date: October 2008
Contact: Kristen Crossett
For more information and to download as pdf:
http://www.coris.noaa.gov/activities/coral_demographics/
Graveyard of the Atlantic Project
Click on image for a larger viewNOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) is presently considering creating a new national marine sanctuary whose mission would be to preserve an as-of-yet-unidentified group of shipwrecks in the coastal waters of the Carolinas. This cultural heritage sanctuary would be called the Graveyard of the Atlantic. To help ONMS staff and stakeholders develop options for the boundaries and components of this new sanctuary, Special Projects is creating a data visualization tool in Google Earth that shows where the region’s more than 2,000 shipwrecks are located relative to other important geographic features, such as maritime shipping lanes, military danger zones, and existing jurisdictional boundaries.
Date: July 2009
Contact: John Hayes
The Gulf of Mexico At a Glance
This report presents memorable representations of selected social, economic, and environmental attributes with the intent of building public awareness about the linkages between the Gulf of Mexico region’s ecological health, the high quality of residents’ everyday lives, and the economic vitality of the region. While this report addresses only a few key regional attributes, it is also hoped that others will be motivated to develop broader and more in-depth representations. Information in this report is organized by three themes, communities, economy, and ecology.
Date: October 2008
Contact: Kristen Crossett
For more information and to download as pdf:
http://gulfofmexicoalliance.org/pdfs/gulf_glance_1008.pdf
Gulf of Mexico Alliance Public Web Site
This Web site is intended to be the central location for the public to learn about the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, what it does, and who its partners are. It also provides information about the Alliance priority issues, event announcements, and funding opportunities. The Gulf of Mexico Alliance is a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, with the goal of significantly increasing regional collaboration to enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico. From this site, you can download the Governors' Action Plan for Healthy and Resilient Coasts, which challenged this new partnership to make tangible, short-term progress between March 2006 and March 2009.
http://www.gulfofmexicoalliance.org/
Date: July 2008
Contact: Chris David
Gulf of Mexico Alliance Working Web Site
This is an internal working Web site for the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. The purpose of this site is to provide all implementation partners current information for Alliance events and to archive past documents and presentations.
http://www2.nos.noaa.gov/gomex/
Date: November 2006
Contact: Chris David
International Hydrographic Organization: Gulf of Honduras Hydrographic Implementation Plan
This summary presents a proposed implementation plan for hydrographic activities that support the navigation safety and improving environmental management components of the Environmental Protection and Maritime Transport Pollution Control in the Gulf of Honduras (GoH) Project—a project funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). SP produced Gulf of Honduras Project Executive Summary and developed related Hydrographic Action Plan for Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras to use in their solicitation of project funds from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Also translated Executive Summary and Action Plan from English to Spanish.
Date: July 2006
Contact: Percy Pacheco
For more information and to download as pdf:
http://www.iho-machc.org/documents/ecctg1_doc.html#A
International Hydrographic Organization: MesoAmerican and Caribbean Sea Hydrographic Commission
In support of NOAA's Office of Coast Survey (OCS), SP wrote text, created graphics, and translated Web pages to Spanish for the Mesoamerican-Caribbean Sea Hydrographic Commission (MACHC) Web site. This effort includes the re-design of the site.
http://www.iho-machc.org/
Contact: John Hayes
IOOS: Development of Spatial Buffers and Planning Maps
NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing Systems (IOOS) Program uses a network of High Frequency Radar (HFR) stations to detect the speed and direction of ocean surface currents along the coast. Special Projects recently created GIS-based datasets of these stations and spatial buffers of their associated radio frequency ranges to allow the IOOS Program to determine where best to expand the HFR network.
Date: October 2008
Contact: John Hayes
Land Cover Characterization of the NERRS Watersheds
This study provides a characterization and analysis of land cover in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) watersheds to support the needs of the NERRS management, research, education, stewardship and coastal training program sectors. The need for this information was identified by the NERRS program as a priority within the System Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP). The primary data source for this project is the NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC) Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) land cover database. It includes land cover, land cover change, impervious surface area, canopy cover characterizations, and digital elevation models. Basic demographic statistics have also been compiled from the U.S. Census Bureau as supplementary information to complement the land cover data. The NERRS sectors, individual reserves, and reserve partners will be able to apply the results of this project for specific applications, identify new partnerships based on watershed land cover characteristics, categorize reserves in new ways, and support research, monitoring, geospatial, and education and outreach activities.
Contact: Chris Clement
National Status and Trends (NS&T) Web Site
The NS&T Web site provides the user with different Web-based data analysis and display tools and protocols to improve up-to date data retrieval, user-friendly mapping, analysis, assessments, comparative studies, and visualization capabilities for users with different levels of data and analysis needs on the three Major NS&T Projects: Benthic Surveillance, Mussel Watch, and Bioeffect Assessments (regional/local information). The development of this Web site is being carried out because of a partnership among the National Ocean Service/National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and Special Projects.
http://nsandt.noaa.gov
Contact: Percy Pacheco
NGS Photo Ordering System
NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) defines and manages our nation’s spatial coordinate system--a reference system essential for transportation and communication, mapping and charting, and a variety of other scientific and engineering applications. As part of this mission, NGS has amassed over sixty years worth of aerial photography of U.S. coastline, watersheds, and airports. This collection of photographs now exists as a digital inventory, for which, Special Projects has created a GIS-based Web interface that allows NGS customers to find and order aerial photographs using both text and map query tools.
Date: February, 2009
Contact: Eric Segerson
NOAA Ship Tracker Web Site
The Ship Tracker Web site provides near real-time positioning for all NOAA ships. A Google Maps version of Ship Tracker is also available to the public. The site shows information about the location, present and past, of NOAA's ships. Ship location and the conditions where the ship was located are maintained on this Web Site for one year.
http://shiptracker.noaa.gov
Contact: Robb Wright
NOAA Restoration Day
SP leads the planning and development of an on-going, NOAA-wide partnership effort to organize and conduct an annual NOAA Restoration Day event. This event is a NOAA volunteer activity focused on restoring a portion of the Chesapeake Bay through a variety of hands-on, in the field coastal restoration activities. This Web site helps to coordinate and raise awareness about this annual NOAA event.
NOS and NOAA Employees, Organizations, and Facilities: Development of Datasets and Maps
Special Projects collected and analyzed NOAA personnel and facility data from several sources, and identified and resolved discrepancies among these sources to create GIS-based datasets of NOAA employees, organizations, and facilities. Further, Special Projects used these datasets to develop maps that accurately display the geographic location of NOAA’s employees and assets. These maps have been integral to the work of many NOS- and NOAA-wide teams, including: the NOS Presidential Transition Team, the NOS Emergency Broadcast System Working Group, NOAA’s Incident Command Center, and NOAA’s Regional Coordination Teams.
Date: November 2008
Contact: Robb Wright
NOS Data Explorer
Data Explorer is a portal for discovering NOS spatial data collections. Site includes a variety of search capabilities including: by geographic extent, keyword, topic, or browse through all of the available metadata records in the index.
http://nosdataexplorer.noaa.gov
Contact: Robb Wright
NOS Estuarine Bathymetry Data Set Web Site
The NOS Estuarine Bathymetry data set Web site is a digital raster compilation of NOS' hydrographic survey data for selected U.S. estuaries. These data provide an important piece of the mapping puzzle to those managing our Nation's valuable estuarine resources. Although bathymetric data are most commonly used to create nautical charts, they are a crucial component in many fields of marine research, and a useful enhancement for 2D and 3D mapping.
Population Trends Along the Coastal United States: 1980-2008
The purpose of the report is to provide recent and projected population trends to coastal managers and communities. This report highlights the importance of coastal areas, and provides an overview of population trends from 1980 to 2003 and projected change in population by 2008. Coastal areas are home to a wealth of natural and economic resources and are the most developed areas in the nation. The narrow fringe comprising 17% of the contiguous land area is home to more than half of the nation's population. By the year 2008, coastal county population is expected to increase by approximately 7 million.
Date: December 2004
Contact: Kristen Crossett
For more information and to download as pdf:
http://marineeconomics.noaa.gov/socioeconomics/assessment/population.html
Spatial Trends in Coastal Socioeconomics (STICS) Web Site
The STICS Web Site offers, in one easy-to-use application, time series geo-referenced demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau for the last four decadal censuses (1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000) and from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (1969 - 2000). Analysis of income and employment data from this information provides useful insight into the socioeconomic trends of the nation’s rapidly developing coastal regions. It also helps coastal managers make more informed decisions regarding program priorities and delivery of services.
http://stics.noaa.gov
Contact: Percy Pacheco
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