ODFW Marine Data Collection Efforts

Northwest Area Committee MeetingNovember 2011

David FoxOregon Department of Fish & WildlifeMarine Resources Program

ODFW Marine Resources Program

• Responsible for ocean and estuary fish, wildlife, and habitat management

• Marine Fishery management (state and federal waters)

• Research and data gathering to support fishery and other resource management

• Development permit review• Marine spatial planning

Recent Work Applicable to Spill Planning and Response

• Shorezone Mapping• Oregon Marine Map• Estuary Shellfish and

Habitat Surveys

Shorezone Mapping

• Low altitude aerial survey (photo and video)• Habitat classification and mapping• Standard protocols (over 100,000 km surveyed in

Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and now Oregon

• Uses – Habitat management– Land use planning– Permit review– Spill response

Survey of ocean and estuary shoreline habitats

Phase 1: Aerial survey completed June 2011

All ocean shore and estuaries - approximately 1,800 km total

Example ocean shore photos

Boiler BayNorth of Florence

Government Point near Depoe Bay

Photos from Coos Bay

Example estuary photos

Phase 2: Classify and Map Shoreline Habitats

• Mapping protocol• Map products• Database products

Plans for continued work• Photography currently available at

www.coastalatlas.net/shorezone/• Complete shoreline classification and mapping

(products – shoreline habitat type shapefiles, database) - Spring and Summer 2012

• Develop interactive web site (DLCD) - 2012

Example interactive Shorezone web site from Alaska

Oregon Marine Map

• Marine spatial planning– State process – Territorial Sea Plan

update for ocean energy development (currently underway)

– Federal process – BOEM, FERC, NOAA, others (starting soon)

• Requires spatial characterization of resources and human uses

Mapping Oregon’s Marine Resources and Uses

Oregon Marine Map

• Web-based GIS – Uses Google Earth interface• Consolidated existing spatial natural resource

data and developed some new data – displayed as data layers in Marine Map

• Biological Resources (Oregon Ecological Atlas) (ODFW)

• Fishery Maps (Ecotrust, DLCD, OCZMA)• Recreational, maritime infrastructure, other

human uses (DLCD)

DLCD, ODFW, Ecotrust, The Nature Conservancy

Biological Resources• Bottom habitat• Kelp beds• Rocky intertidal shoreline

Cape Blanco

Cape Blanco Gold Beach

Brookings

Biological Resources• Seabird nesting colonies• Seabird species diversity

Cape Blanco

Cape Blanco Gold Beach

Brookings

Important Fishery AreasBrookings/Gold Beach – combined fishing grounds for commercial Dungeness crab, salmon (troll), rockfish (fixed gear), and urchin, and sport Dungeness crab, Pacific halibut, rockfish, and salmon.

Cape Blanco

Gold Beach

Brookings

Other Human Uses

Newport

Current Status of Oregon Marine Map

• Approximately 50 data layers currently available

• Will add another 50 in the next month• Developed for marine spatial planning but will

be useful in all marine resource management applications

• www.Oregon.marinemap.org (need Google earth plug-in)

Assess Oregon estuary habitat and shellfish resources

• 2008: Coos Bay• 2010-2011: Tillamook Bay• 2012: Yaquina Bay, Netarts Bay• 2013 and beyond: additional estuaries

Estuary Habitat and Shellfish Surveys

Study Goals

• Quantify Bay Clam

– Abundance– Biomass– Habitat characteristics– Spatial distribution

• Map estuarine habitat• Develop methods that are

comparable over space and time• Digitize and maintain legacy

data sets

Study uses quantitative sampling methods to determine clam abundance and map estuary habitat

n=91

n=90

-0.5 to 0.0m

0.0 to 0.5m

0.5 to 1.0m

Example Product – Interactive Clam Maps

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/MRP/shellfish/index.asp

Example Product – Recreational shellfish harvest areas

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/MRP/shellfish/index.asp

Questions

• Shorezone photo products - www.coastalatlas.net/shorezone/• Marine Map – www.Oregon.marinemap.org• Shellfish and estuary maps -

www.dfw.state.or.us/MRP/shellfish/index.asp