An innovative ocean planning tool for the Atlantic outer continentalshelf: The EcoSpatial Information Database

Beth Zimmer a, Leslie Manzello a, Keld Madsen b,n, James Sinclair c, Rebecca E. Green d

a Atkins North America, Inc., 2001 NW 107 Avenue, Doral, FL 33172, USAb AMEC Environment and Infrastructure, Inc., 3800 Ezell Road, Suite 100, Nashville, TN 37211, USAc Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70123, USAd Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70123, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 10 June 2013Received in revised form6 November 2013Accepted 8 November 2013Available online 10 December 2013

Keywords:Ecosystem-based managementNEPAEcologyWeb mapping applicationGISGeodatabase

a b s t r a c t

Robust scientific information is essential to proper leasing decisions in offshore waters of the UnitedStates. This information develops the necessary understanding of the environment required to protectecosystems during sustainable energy development offshore. Collection of existing scientific informationcan be a laborious and time-consuming process. In an effort to collate and evaluate scientific informationin a more effective and timely manner, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) created asystem that would improve the speed with which environmental research is performed whilemaintaining scientific defensibility of the resulting decisions. The EcoSpatial Information Database (ESID,pronounced “ee-sid”), available at http://esid.boem.gov, makes relevant scientific literature and ecolo-gical data for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the U.S. Atlantic Coast readily accessible via advancedlocation and content data searches. A unique search protocol was developed to identify and scientificallyscreen thousands of scientific articles and environmental reports to identify scientific datasets in thedisciplines of marine geology, water quality, pelagic ecology, and benthic ecology. A prioritization processculled the results to a total of 3108 resources spanning the years of 1884 to 2010. These resources werethen geospatially referenced and incorporated into the ESID. A web-based Geographic InformationSystem (GIS), hosted in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), was developed to provide broad accessto the data and supporting documents. The cloud-based ESID Web Application allows users to search bycontent and location, view citations and abstracts, export bibliographic entries and view and downloaddocuments. The system is designed to support virtually unlimited geographic and subject matterexpansion and will streamline BOEM's efforts to produce the required National Environmental Policy Actdocuments in a more efficient manner.

& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Historically, resource management of U.S. waters held a narrowfocus (e.g., single species, management concern, or specificarea) [1,2]. In recent years, there has been increasing awarenessthat a more holistic approach is necessary to effectively managecoastal and offshore marine resources. In March 2005, a group ofwidely respected scientists and policy experts released theScientific Consensus Statement on Marine Ecosystem-Based Manage-ment with the goal of communicating a scientific understanding ofthis integrated approach to managing marine ecosystems [1].This document espoused an ideal approach to U.S. marineresource management and catalyzed the idea of ecosystem-based

management, which has become the goal for coastal and oceanmanagement activity at U.S. Federal and State agencies. In July2010, the White House codified this concept by creating theNational Oceans Council (NOC) to coordinate marine resourcemanagement among all Federal agencies with ecosystem-basedmanagement as the key tenet [3].

Spatial tools enable managers to turn the conceptual idea ofecosystem-based management into more concrete solutions foreffective implementation [4]. A vital portion of ecosystem-basedmarine spatial management consists of defining and analyzing theexisting conditions of marine areas of concern, which relies on theavailability of comprehensive and reliable scientific data [5]. Suitabledata for an inventory should be relevant, objective, accurate, compar-able, and readily accessible [5]. Despite the fact that the majority ofscientific research on marine resources is publicly funded, theresulting data and associated literature may be deposited in locationsthat limit dissemination, such as private storage, science data

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpol

Marine Policy

0308-597X/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2013.11.007

n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 615 333 0630.E-mail address: keld.madsen@amec.com (K. Madsen).

Marine Policy 45 (2014) 60–68

repositories or data centers, privately held scientific databases, or ascopyrighted information.

The agencies responsible for the application of ecosystem-based marine spatial management principles are currently in needof improved tools for identifying and assessing appropriate infor-mation. This was the challenge facing the U.S. Department of theInterior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM; formerlythe Minerals Management Service) in late 2008. The BOEM ischarged with leasing and managing offshore bottomlands inFederal waters (i.e., from the state-managed limit out to the limitsof the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)) for mineral exploration andenergy development. The Atlantic waters along the U.S. East Coasthad been closed to oil and gas leasing for over 20 years. However,in July 2008, President Bush lifted the withdrawal order that hadbeen in place since 1990 and in September 2008, Congress allowedthe annual congressional moratoria on offshore oil and gas leasingand drilling to expire. Concurrently, interest in renewable energyleasing off the U.S. Atlantic began to accelerate and the OffshoreEnergy Act of 2005 charged BOEM with leasing the Outer Con-tinental Shelf (OCS) bottomlands for the development of alter-native energy and other uses. In support of these activities, BOEMrequires access to relevant ecological information on the AtlanticOCS to support management and decision making and assist withNational Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessments requiredfor issuing permits for energy activities.

The BOEM created the EcoSpatial Information Database (ESID), aunique geodatabase that makes relevant ecological literature anddata on the Atlantic Planning Areas readily accessible to BOEM staffin support of the permitting process. The concept behind the ESIDwas to manage and store relevant resources in a robust, geospatialdatabase that is accessible via location and content search techni-ques using a Geographic Information System (GIS) web application.This spatial ecology tool can improve the efficiency and quality ofscientific research by capturing relevant resources and making themreadily available into the future.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Project area

The ESID project area consists of the North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic,and South Atlantic Planning Areas, which extend from the Atlanticcoastal states of Maine to Florida (Fig. 1) and include the submergedlands, subsoil, and seabed lying between the States' seaward jur-isdiction and the seaward extent of Federal jurisdiction (the EEZboundary). In addition, specific Areas of Interest (AOIs), wherealternative energy leasing activity was particularly expected, weredesignated at the initiation of the project (Fig. 1) [6].

2.2. Development of ESID protocol

The magnitude of the ESID, in combination with its sizeable team(�40 members), required the development of a strategic andthorough project protocol. The project team, which included scien-tists, software developers, database experts, and a professionallibrarian, employed a science-based and step-wise approach toconstruct the protocol. The protocol was comprehensive andaddressed all elements of the project, including the following:(1) Data Collection and Documentation – identification and evalua-tion of resources, (2) Geospatial Evaluation and Documentation– geographic characterization of the collected resources, and (3)Database Development – design and implementation of the geospa-tial database and associated applications (Fig. 2). The protocoldefined a logical, documented approach to ensure that all team

members implemented identical assumptions and processes whileconducting their respective tasks.

2.3. Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) program

The complexity, large team, and extensive nature of the projectrequired a rigorous Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC)program to validate the processes and results. A dedicated QA/QCprogram manager oversaw the two primary components of theprogram: (1) the development of specific methods for completingproject tasks, and (2) the conducting of routine intermediate andfinal product reviews. Communication was required to ensure thata feedback loop existed to support review, information dissemina-tion, acceptance, and revision. Product reviews were conductedduring the processes of document prioritization, resource annota-tion, geographic characterization, and data extraction.

2.4. Resource data collection

2.4.1. Identification and prioritization of relevant informationPrior to initiating the search for relevant ESID resources, the

types of information (topics) to be included in the ESID, as well asthe topics to be excluded, were defined. The ESID topics of interest(Resource Categories) were determined through collaborationwith BOEM staff and provided the foundation of the resource datacollection protocol. The ESID Resource Categories covered a limitedset of ecological data/information and are shown in Fig. 3, alongwith those resources to specifically be excluded.

To evaluate resources for relevance and inclusion in the ESID,an Internal Science Review Team (ISRT), consisting of nine scien-tists knowledgeable in each of the Resource Categories, wasassembled. The ISRT had the following project responsibilities:

� Create keywords for the Resource Categories to be used duringliterature/data searches;

� Develop prioritization criteria for each of the Resource Cate-gories to facilitate the evaluation of resources;

� Review the resource abstracts for relevance to the ESID; and� Review resources for potential GIS data extraction.

The ESID was designed to house documents (e.g., peer-reviewedscientific literature, technical reports, and government documents)and datasets (e.g., raw data and GIS data). A bibliographic databasetool was needed to act as a repository for citations and to serve as avehicle through which team members and project managers couldaccess and manage documents. The RefWorks™ bibliographic data-base was selected for use because it is a commercially-available web-based tool that provides simultaneous, centralized access to multipleusers. RefWorks™ also had the capability to directly input biblio-graphic information from the library sources used to identifyresource documents.

2.4.1.1. Identification of resources2.4.1.1.1. Literature. A professional librarian performed litera-

ture searches to identify and acquire relevant scientific literature/documents. In order to efficiently target the search efforts andminimize the identification of extraneous information, the ISRTmembers worked with the project librarian to generate a list ofkeywords for each Resource Category. The project librarian utilizedthe keyword lists to search the following sources for relevantliterature.

� Dialogs databank (http://www.dialog.com/) – a collection of600 databases covering science, technology, intellectual prop-erty, and business.

B. Zimmer et al. / Marine Policy 45 (2014) 60–68 61

� OCL WorldCat databank (http://www.oclc.org/us/en/worldcat/default.htm) – largest online public access catalog, whichcontains cataloging records of the collections of its 72,000member libraries representing 170 countries.

� Aquatic Commons (http://aquaticcommons.org/) – a digitalrepository covering the natural marine, estuarine/brackish,and fresh water environments.

� Targeted internet searches for environmental impact state-ments (EIS).

Individual literature searches were conducted for each of theResource Categories using a web-based database with extensivesearch capabilities (the Dialogs Classic database). Duplicate resultswere minimized by selecting the Remove Duplicates command priorto output. An Electronic Redistribution and Archiving command wasadded to the output command, which provided the legal right tostore the downloaded citations on one computer network and makethe information available to up to 25 people. Final results of eachsearch were output in the title-only format and saved in a wordprocessing document file. The resulting titles were categorized byResource Category and distributed to the appropriate ISRT memberfor evaluation and prioritization. Keyword searches were then run onWorldcat™, which helped to locate a larger number of materials (e.g.,books, theses, dissertations, government documents, technicalreports, and other gray literature). The results from Worldcat™ weredownloaded into RefWorks™. All search results from Aquatic Com-mons were duplicate citations that had already been identified in theDialogs and Worldcat™ searches. To identify EIS documents withinthe project area that might have been overlooked in the othersearches, targeted internet searches were conducted.

2.4.1.1.2. Datasets. A total of 34 websites affiliated with govern-ment agencies, universities, and private research laboratories werethoroughly searched to locate GIS and non-GIS datasets relevant to

the ESID (Supplementary Table 1). The websites were selectedbased on relevancy to the Resource Categories. Each website fellinto one of the following categories: (1) websites without a queryfeature (excluding a generalized “search” field), (2) queryablewebsites, and (3) websites containing a list of external web links.The majority of the websites searched lacked a query feature.In these instances, the website's internal links were followeduntil datasets were located. Links leading to websites that didnot contain data (e.g., websites focused on information andpublic relations that provided meeting summaries and agendas,stakeholder letters, public hearings, press releases, scoping hear-ings, etc.) were not searched exhaustively. Primary web linksthat contained related sub-links were evaluated to determineif data were readily available, and if so, these sub-links werefollowed until datasets were located. For those websites with aquery feature, search criteria selected within the query fieldincluded geographic region or keywords relevant to the ResourceCategories.

The search process for each website was thoroughly documen-ted in both a spreadsheet and written protocol. These provided ageneral description of how the search was conducted, as well aslists of datasets that were identified during the search. All weblinks with datasets that were potentially applicable to the ESIDwere flagged for prioritization by the ISRT.

2.4.1.2. Prioritization of resources2.4.1.2.1. Literature. All relevant literature obtained from the

various searches was prioritized based on a defined protocol.The document title lists generated from the Dialogs databasesearches were evaluated by the ISRT based on the following twopredetermined threshold criteria: (1) relevant to the Resource

Fig. 1. ESID project area.

B. Zimmer et al. / Marine Policy 45 (2014) 60–6862

Categories, and (2) inclusive of information/data within the projectstudy area.

Document titles that did not satisfy both threshold criteria wererejected. For titles meeting both threshold criteria and titles that didnot provide sufficient information for a decision, the project librarianimported the complete bibliographic citation and abstract into Ref-Works™. For those documents identified during the Worldcat™

searches, the complete document citation and abstract were uploadedinto RefWorks™.

To determine the relevance and assign priority to each citation/abstract in RefWorks™, the ISRT developed a relevance matrix(Supplementary Table 2) for each of the Resource Categories. Eachcitation/abstract was reviewed by the appropriate ISRT member,who applied the guidance in the resource-specific relevance matrixand assigned a priority value within RefWorks™ (Table 1). Thepurpose of the priority value was to identify resources that shouldbe recommended for acquisition and to prioritize the resourcesrelative to one another. Literature searches often generated replicatecitations across multiple Resource Categories. Replicate recordswere merged and all ISRT priority values were included in Ref-Works™. Ten percent of the documents in each priority categorywere reviewed by the QA/QC program manager to verify that theISRT correctly applied the relevance criteria.

2.4.1.2.2. Datasets. The ISRT developed a set of prioritizationcriteria (Supplementary Table 2) for each of the Resource Cate-gories to provide guidance in assigning a priority ranking to thedatasets. Those with P0 rankings were assigned to web links that

did not contain data, datasets that did not satisfy the thresholdcriteria, and datasets consisting solely of photo or video data. Theremaining datasets were reviewed by the appropriate ISRT mem-bers according to the prioritization criteria and assigned anappropriate priority ranking (Table 1).

2.4.2. Documentation and permission for acquired resourcesSignificant effort was made to acquire all highest priority (P1)

documents, if possible, through a variety of methods. The specificmethods used for document acquisition included the following: (1)direct download, (2) inter-library loan (i.e., Firstsearch/OCLC mem-bership), (3) acquisition from university libraries (i.e., Harbor BranchOceanographic Institution at Florida Atlantic University, RosenstielSchool of Marine and Atmospheric Science at University of Miami,and Florida International University), (4) acquisition from the privatelibrary at CSA International, Inc., and (5) personal e-mail commu-nications with Marine Librarians from the U.S., Denmark, Germany,and the United Kingdom, as well as individual authors. The majorityof documents were acquired through inter-library loan. Requests fordocuments from libraries and direct purchases from copyrightholders came with copyright restrictions. Since a majority of theacquired documents were under copyright restriction (i.e., docu-ments were single-use only and could not be stored, released toanother entity, or shared in a custom database or directory), copy-right permission letters were sent to individual copyright holdersto obtain use permissions for inclusion in the ESID. The letters

Fig. 2. ESID project protocol.

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requested permission to access the documents and for permission tostore the documents in the secure ESID.

2.5. Resource processing

Each resource selected for inclusion in the ESID requiredvarious processing steps prior to loading into the geodatabase.The three main processing steps are described as follows.

2.5.1. Annotation and standardizationAll P1 resources selected for inclusion in the ESID were exported

to a Microsoft Access Database for QA/QC. The literature and dataresources were stored in bibliographic format in RefWorks™ and ina database table (Resource Table), respectively. Optical CharacterRecognition was applied to all acquired resource documents, result-ing in a searchable PDF format. At a minimum, each resourcedocument was annotated with the following fields: ESID uniqueID, Distribution (copyright category), Reference Type (e.g., journal,conference proceeding, etc.), Year (production/publication year),Author, Abstract, Location Description (see Geographic Characteriza-tion below), Publisher, Language, Output Language, Source Type(print or electronic), and Acquired (acquisition date). A link to anonline source (if available) and a list of keywords were also providedfor each resource document. Abstracts and keywords were createdfor documents when they were not readily available.

2.5.2. Geographic characterizationFor each P1 resource, a Location Description was recorded and

the most appropriate GIS feature (e.g., points, polygons, circles)was selected, corresponding to the study's spatial footprint. If theresource was not within the project area, no further processingwas conducted. For resources containing study sites both withinand outside of the ESID project area, all locations in the resourcewere digitized. For resources with study sites in well-knownlocations (e.g., Georges Bank, South Atlantic Bight, etc.), spatialtemplates were developed to estimate the extents of studiesperformed in those areas. Resource locations that extend towardthe coast were clipped to the coastline. If a geographic descriptionwas vague, the boundary limit was clipped to the coastline or theEEZ, or a standard Atlantic Ocean shape was used. The LocationDescription was added to the bibliographic data for each resource.A QA/QC process was used to verify 10% of the digitized resourceboundaries. The resource boundaries were then loaded into asingle feature dataset (FeatureArea) in an Enterprise Geodatabase.

2.5.3. Data extractionResource data extraction was conducted for specific AOIs

within the project area. There were eight AOI polygons total,defined as potential lease areas described in BOEM's Draft ProposedOCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2010–2015 [6], including theproposed Virginia Lease Sale 220. Data tables were extracted from767 PDF documents that intersected AOI polygons. The tables wereconverted into document-specific Microsoft Excel workbooks forinclusion in the ESID. The data extraction QA/QC process includedthe inspection of 75 PDF documents for every 340 documenttables. The error margin was approximately 10%, meaning that ifseven or more documents failed (i.e., errors in extracted tables),then the entire batch of tables was reevaluated and corrected. Ifless than seven documents failed, then only the failing documentsand tables were corrected.

2.6. Geodatabase design

Several component databases contributed to the developmentof the final ESID geodatabase. These included bibliographic, loca-tion-description, and geographic databases, as described in thefollowing.

2.6.1. RefWorks™ bibliographic databaseA RefWorks™ website served as the central location to house the

bibliographic data collected for each resource document. The “Ref-Works Extensible Markup Language (XML) Format” was chosen forexporting data from the website because it offered the mostappropriate and complete dataset output for the ESID. However,because the RefWorks™ field names had coded values, aliases weredeveloped for the coded field names to make them more mean-ingful to the user. The Alias field names were used in place of theRefWorks™ field names moving forward into geodatabase design.The RefWorks™ “Ref ID” was applied to the filename of thecorresponding PDF document. The PDF documents were originallyFig. 3. Resource categories and excluded topics.

Table 1Priority values assigned to each resource by the ISRT.

Priority value Definition Result

P0 Resource not applicable to the criteria defined in therelevance matrices

Resource not acquired

P1 Resource highly applicable to the criteria defined in therelevance matrices and of highest priority for acquisition

Resource acquired, if possible

P2 Resource is relevant, but of lower priority, according tothe criteria defined in the relevance matrices

Resource not acquired; however abstracts/citationswere retained in RefWorks™ for future acquisition

B. Zimmer et al. / Marine Policy 45 (2014) 60–6864

intended to be stored in the ESID geodatabase; however, for perfor-mance reasons, these documents were stored in a separate folderstructure which is accessible through the ESID Web Application.

2.6.2. Geographic characterization Microsoft Access databaseA Microsoft Access Geographic Characterization database was

developed to manage the Location Description information devel-oped for each resource document. The database served as a tool fortracking location maps that were extracted from PDF documentsand used by GIS staff to digitize study boundaries as shapefiles forinclusion in the ESID. The database was also used to delegateworkload among project members and track any issues related tothe digitization process. In addition, the database served as aquality control tool to check accuracy of the study boundaryshapefiles.

2.6.3. Arc Marine data modelThe Arc Marine data model is a personal geodatabase devel-

oped by Esri (with input from the marine community) thatcontains marine feature classes, tables, and relationship classes[7]. It was selected for the ESID because of its applicability to thetypes of data being stored in the ESID, its potential for expansion,and the significant effort previously spent developing the model.The entire Arc Marine schema served as the base structure for theESID; however, only one feature class, FeatureArea, was used. Thedigitized resource boundaries generated during Geographic Char-acterization were loaded into the FeatureArea layer once theypassed quality control.

Metadata conforming to Federal Geographic Data Committee(FGDC) requirements was created for each shapefile within thegeodatabase. The Resource Table also serves as metadata andcontains all bibliographic data merged with the Location Descrip-tion generated during Geographic Characterization.

2.6.4. Content search capabilityThe utility of the ESID is greatly enhanced by the ability to

perform content searches of the database. There are two basictypes of content searches, Resource Table metadata search andadvanced index search, both of which rely on the use of a databaseindex table. Since the Resource Table is relatively small and thekeywords used to locate and obtain the resources provide a defacto database index table, the Resource Table metadata search canbe conducted rapidly. The content search conducted on anadvanced index of all searchable documents allows for querying.PDFBox, an open source Java tool, was used to extract documentcontent for each ESID resource document. The document contentwas related with the ESID unique ID into a document object class.Lucene, an open source indexing tool, was used to index all ESIDresource documents and retrieve all ESID unique IDs related touser provided search parameters.

3. Results

3.1. Resource data collection and acquisition

In total, 3108 P1 resources (spanning the years 1884–2010) forthe U.S. Atlantic OCS were incorporated into the ESID, includingbibliographic entries for 2717 documents and 391 web links forscientific datasets. A much larger number of potential resourceswere identified with initial searches, but these resources wereculled down to the final number based on their relevance andprioritization.

3.1.1. LiteratureSearches of the Dialogs and Worldcat™ databases resulted in

the identification of 27,431 potentially relevant document titles(Table 2). No new citations resulted from the search of AquaticCommons. The targeted internet searches, together with theWorldcat™ search, resulted in the identification of 28 EIS docu-ments. After evaluation by the ISRT, complete citations/abstractswere downloaded for 9379 titles.

The ISRT identified a total of 2717 P1 documents during theprioritization process, and an attempt was made to acquire all ofthese documents. The vast majority of the acquired documentswere under copyright restriction. Approval was received to useand store 881 of the copyright-restricted documents in the ESID.Copyright restrictions are in place for the remaining acquireddocuments and these documents are not stored in the ESID;however, their citation information remains accessible in the ESIDas a bibliographic entry.

3.1.2. DatasetsSearches of the 34 websites resulted in the examination of

approximately 10,000 web links to identify scientific datasets rele-vant to the ESID. The prioritization process resulted in the identifica-tion of 391 P1 datasets. The web links for these datasets were addedto the ESID as bibliographic entries. The datasets themselves werenot incorporated into the ESID to avoid redundancy, as the ESIDprovides direct hyperlinks to access and download the data.

3.2. ESID Web Application and user interface

It was determined that the ESID would best serve its intendedpurpose by being accessible to authenticated users and to the publicthrough the Internet. A website (http://esid.boem.gov) was imple-mented to control access to the ESID and to provide a framework forquerying the database. The ESID is currently hosted in the AmazonEC2 Cloud hosting environment as a Web Application.

The ESID Web Application includes a File Geodatabase, Support-ing Database, and Resource Document Storage (Fig. 4). All spatialdata are stored in an Esri (version 10) File Geodatabase built on theArc Marine data model. The FeatureArea layer, the only populatedfeature class for this project, contains the digitized resource bound-aries and has layer-level and feature-level FGDC metadata. TheSupporting Database is PostgreSQL 8.3 and contains resource biblio-graphic information, as well as administrative data used to manageaccess to the web application. All file-based documents are stored ona server-based file system. Full text, searchable documents areaccessible through a query feature using the ESID Web Applicationand can be downloaded by the user. The ESID Web Application linksFile Geodatabase, Supporting Database, and Resource DocumentStorage using the ESID unique ID.

The ESID Web Application Home Page provides users with ageneral description of the ESID, site requirements, and login options.

Table 2Number of titles identified and citations downloaded from the Dialogs andWorldcat™ databanks.

Resource category No. of titles identified No. of citations downloaded

Dialogs Worldcat™ Dialogs Worldcat™

Geology 4782 54 2668 54Water quality 4308 46 1956 46Pelagic ecology 11,395 64 2598 64Infauna/meiofauna 1503 12 887 12Demersal fishes 2669 51 820 51Coral and hardbottom 2346 86 119 86Seagrass 115 0 18 0Total 27,118 313 9066 313

B. Zimmer et al. / Marine Policy 45 (2014) 60–68 65

The public can access the site, conduct searches, and view resourceboundaries and bibliographic information. However, the public is onlyable to view open-access bibliographic information/documents or

online resources. The Authenticated User Login allows up to 25simultaneous authorized users to access the Web Application byproviding issued credentials. Authenticated users can view both

Fig. 4. Components of the ESID Web Application.

Fig. 5. ESID Web Application.

B. Zimmer et al. / Marine Policy 45 (2014) 60–6866

open-access and copyright-restricted information and can load newresources into the system for administrative review and approval.Finally, a system administrator can view all bibliographies anddocuments, upload new resources to the ESID, edit existing resources,approve new resources, and manage users.

The ESID Web Application has standard panning and zoomingcontrols, a coordinates scale bar, and the capability for users totoggle between various Esri base maps including Oceans, Aerial,Streets, and Topo (Fig. 5). Additional map layers are linked fromthe Multipurpose Marine Cadastre (http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/mmc) and are displayable. There are seven widget

icons in the Web Application that provide the ability to queryresource data, view related spatial boundaries and resource docu-ments, and print reports (Table 3 and Fig. 5).

3.3. ESID cloud configuration

The current ESID cloud configuration uses two Amazon MachineInstances (AMI) with associated Elastic Block Storage (EBS) (Fig. 6).These AMIs are preconfigured virtual servers that have operatingsystems and specific software pre-installed. Each AMI serves a specificset of purposes and are dependent on one another. The Application

Table 3ESID Web Application widgets.

Widget name Description

Map layers Select and view Multipurpose Marine Cadastre (MMC) features including offshore boundaries, infrastructure, human use, energy potential, and otherdatasets.

Search bycontent

Perform content-based search by entering terms in a text box. Search results can be narrowed by applying filters or selecting individual Search Fieldsthat correspond to fields in bibliographic database. Results are displayed in Search Results window and on map. User can generate report of searchresults in Microsoft Excel or Reference Manager format. Double clicking a record in Search Results window shows the Details View Form and provides afull citation, abstract, and associated PDF document (if copyright allows).

Search bylocation

Identify resources that intersect a user-created geometry.� Basic search allows user to draw a geometric shape on the map.� Search by coordinates allows user to specify search area by latitude/longitude.� Search by lease block allows user to select BOEM planning area, protraction number, and block number using drop-down fields.� Search by shapefile allows user to upload shapefile.

Print mapdisplay

Print the current map view with user-created map title and subtitle.

Identifyfeatures

View information about features by drawing shape in specific location on map. Identify window appears displaying study boundaries of intersectedresources. If mouse is pointed at a result in the Identify window, a separate call-out displays attributes of specific resource.

Uploadresources

Authenticated user-inputs information for the new resource including all bibliographic information, supporting documentation, and resource footprintshapefile. Resource will not be visible through the ESID until reviewed, approved, and published by Administrator.

Manage users Provides list of users with authenticated login credentials. Administrator can add new users and update current user information.

Fig. 6. ESID cloud configuration.

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Server acts as the primary web server hosting the website files (Fig. 6,folder icon), web services (triangle icon), resource documents (foldericon), and the PostgreSQL database which houses the resourcebibliographic information (cylinder icon). The Esri ArcGIS ServerAMI/EBS is tasked with serving and storing the ESID File Geodatabase,which contains all resource spatial data and map services. The ESIDadministrators are capable of accessing the servers directly outside ofthe Web Application to support and manage all aspects of the ESIDWeb Application.

4. Conclusions

The ESID, available at http://esid.boem.gov, went live on Novem-ber 23, 2011 and contains over 3100 geo-referenced resources (bothdocuments and web links to scientific datasets) spanning from 1884to 2010. Notably, the ESID was honored for outstanding contributionsto ecological mapping on March 5, 2013, earning the AmericanCouncil of Engineering Companies of Tennessee (ACEC) EngineeringExcellence Grand Award in the Survey and Mapping Technologycategory. The geospatial database makes marine ecological informa-tion accessible to BOEM scientists and the public (limited by copy-right restrictions). The ESID includes literature and data for theFederal waters extending from Maine to central Florida that fallunder the following topics: marine geology, water quality, pelagicecology, and benthic ecology (including infauna/meiofauna, demersalfishes, coral and hardbottom communities, and seagrass). Futureaddition of resources for other geographic areas and subjects isvirtually unlimited. The ESID Web Application allows authenticatedusers to perform advanced searches by content and location and toapply filters and refine search parameters. Users can then viewsearch results (citations and abstracts), generate reports, view docu-ments (as allowed by copyright restrictions), print map displays,identify mapped features, and upload additional resources (subject tosystem administrator approval).

Literature and data from publicly-funded scientific research onmarine resources is generally challenging to locate. Access to scientificliterature is typically restricted to those purchasing peer-reviewedpublications, and data itself may be located in private storage, sciencedata repositories/centers, or privately-held databases. “E-science” isdefined as “increased access, via desktop or other interface via theInternet, to distributed resources, global collaboration, and the intel-lectual, historical, analytical, and investigative output of a range ofscientific communities” and has thus emerged as one means to bridgethis data accessibility issue [8]. The BOEM developed the ESID as aspatial ecology research tool to support management, decision-mak-ing, and the NEPA process for BOEM ocean energy leasing. The ESID isone of a number of marine ecology data systems being introduced forocean sustainability (e.g., MMC and nascent National InformationManagement System being developed by the National Oceans Coun-cil). These systems are being designed to make relevant informationreadily available and to interface with one another to utilize dataacross system lines. While the majority of existing marine spatialsystems consist solely of spatial data with GIS-based tools [9], the ESIDis a unique geospatial database in that it allows the user to access bothscientific literature and data by performing location and content-based queries. In addition, the ESID is innovative in that it wasdesigned to support virtually unlimited expansion of geographic areas,subject matter, and file types, and it provides broad access to the dataand literature through a web-based application.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the BOEM (formerly the MineralsManagement Service) under contract M09PC00047. The authorssincerely thank the following individuals who contributed their timeand expertise to make the design, development, and population ofthe ESID successful. Thanks to Lonnie Hearne, Jeff Albee, Brett Fritze,Jodi Lindsey, William Sloger Jr., Doug Cribbs, Adam Gelber, BrianBugg, and Babu Krishnasamy for overall project and task manage-ment. Thanks to Dr. Neal Phillips for management of the QualityAssurance/Quality Control program. Thanks to the Internal ScienceReview Team: Dr. Luis Lagera Jr., David Snyder, John Thompson, KeithSpring, Brian Balcom, Ralph Montgomery, Kristin Jenkins, StuartStrum, and Donald Deis. Thanks to the project librarian, KristenMetzger, and to D. Deis for reviewing this manuscript. Thanks toClayton Wright, Daniel Hearn, Josh Streufert, Bimal Shah, and ChrisInnes for programming, application development, and databasearchitecture. Thanks to Inger Sarappo, Suellen Holland, BrooksIngram, and Daniel Conn for geographic characterization. Thanks toWhitney Fuquay for report and documentation writing and internalquality assurance. Thanks to Mike Rasser for program support, LennyCoats and Steve Gonzales for information technology and datasupport, and BOEM Regional staff for providing feedback. We aregrateful to the libraries that provided assistance with literatureacquisition and to the publishers for generously providing copyrightexemptions for this project.

Appendix A. Supplementary information

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found inthe online version at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2013.11.007.

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