Human use characterization and visualization in marine spatial planning efforts in the Northeast

Comprehensive ocean planning must account for the diversity of human uses that converge in coastal waters and their potential impacts on marine ecosystems. Ocean plans have been developed at the federal, regional, and state level to address these issues; however, the under-documentation of human activities has hindered the ocean planning process. SeaPlan, an independent non-profit ocean science and policy group, has worked to address these data gaps through projects focusing on collecting and visualizing human use data. One project developed a cumulative impact model and maps by combining spatial data on environmental stressors and ecosystem distribution and expert opinion on ecosystem vulnerability, characterize the intensity of impacts in Massachusetts waters. The analysis revealed that areas near the coast and along major shipping routes were highly impacted from the co-occurrence and intensity of multiple uses and the vulnerability of underlying habitats. One outcome of this assessment was an identified need to improve and develop robust data on recreational ocean uses. This informed the development of a statewide and a regional recreational boater survey informed by extensive stakeholder outreach. Recreational boaters reported on their boating expenditures and mapped their boating activity using an interactive mapping application. The results of these surveys revealed a high concentration of boater routes near the coast, and identified fishing as the most popular activity associated with recreational boating. To increase the utility of these datasets in the ocean planning process, SeaPlan has contributed to the development of the Massachusetts Ocean Resource Information System (MORIS), and the Northeast Ocean Data Portal, which contain downloadable datasets and interactive mapping tools relevant to ocean planning in Massachusetts and the Northeast. Characterizing and mapping human uses allows managers to visualize the potential impacts of human activity in the ocean environment and to identify areas of special concern. These projects represent the first time these particular data types are quantified and visualized on a state or regional scale. Stakeholder and expert engagement, filling data gaps on human uses, and developing interactive mapping technologies have allowed us to provide necessary datasets and tools which improve the marine spatial planning process in the Northeast.