New Data and Reports Posted
Under the direction of the Data Manager, Carrie Robb, the BCMCA website continues to improve. Since the summer of 2011, content has been added to the marine atlas and data library and the document library. We have been working hard behind the scenes to prepare more data and information for download!
There have been many updates to the human use features available through the data library. You can now download GIS compatible data (in shapefile format) for features in these sectors: commercial fisheries, shipping and transportation, sport fishing, tourism and recreation, and ocean energy.
We also posted many information files, known as metadata, that describe the data sources and processing steps used to compile each feature. Metadata files were posted for: commercial fisheries (35 features), shipping and transportation (14 features), sport fishing (4 features), tenures (6 features), tourism and recreation (4 features), and ocean energy (4 features).
Marxan metadata files are similar but they describe how data were processed into the BCMCA planning units and prepared for use in Marxan analyses. Marxan metadata files have been posted for: commercial fishing (35 features) and shipping and transportation (10 features).
The remaining human use data and metadata files are still in the works and will be posted as they are completed.
Recent additions to our document library include:
- an Ocean Energy workshop report ,
- the Sport Fish mapping project final report,
- excerpts from the printed version of the BCMCA Atlas, including the introduction, table of contents and acknowledgments, and
- a list of all the atlas pages created for our marine atlas (called BCMCA Atlas – List of Maps).
We are also continually updating and improving the BCMCA Custodian Restrictions Spreadsheet [note: now replaced by our online Custodian Index]. This spreadsheet documents all the custodians of the original data sets that the BCMCA drew upon to create the features you see illustrated in our marine atlas and data library. If you are looking for data that the BCMCA does not have permission to share or distribute, this document tells you who to request permission from.
The BCMCA will continue to improve and to update the results available at www.bcmca.ca to ensure that the best information is provided to marine planning agencies, organizations and the marine user communities.