Data Measures for Gulf Economy
High Priority Working Lands
RESTORE Goal: Gulf Economy – Priority Attribute: Working Lands
DEFINITION The percentage area of pine, cropland, and pasture/hay classes from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016 classification map (Yang et al. 2018) excluding the areas that are already protected according to the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 2.0 (Gergeley 2016).
Data Summary
Data Source: GAP (USGS 2011); Florida Cooperative Land Cover (FL CLC) (FL-FWS 2019); Texas Ecological Mapping Systems (TX EMS) (TX-TPWD 2019)
Unit: Percentage (%)
Default Utility Function: The higher percentage of priority working lands (higher score), the better for conservation
Area of Interest Aggregation: The score for the area of interest is the summed score from the hexagons inside the area of interest
Threshold: Continuous utility function ranging from 0 to 1
Workflow:
Extract the target layers from NLCD 2016 to a new raster file.
Transform the raster data to a vector shapefile.
Perform spatial join to calculate the percent area within each hexagon.
Commercial Fishing Reliance
RESTORE Goal: Gulf Economy – Priority Attribute: Economically Valuable Species
DEFINITION Commercial fishing reliance measures the presence of commercial fishing through fishing activity as shown through permits and vessel landings relative to the population of a community. A high rank indicates more reliance.
Data Summary
Data Source: NMFS Social Indicators [(Colburn et al. 2016),(Jepson and Colburn 2018)]
Unit: Index
Default Utility Function: The higher the reliance on commercial fishing (higher score), the better for conservation
Area of Interest Aggregation: Maximum score from the hexagons inside the area of interest
Threshold: Discrete utility value ranging from 0 to 1
Low, Medium, Medium-High, High
Workflow:
Clip the Commercial fishing reliance data to hexagon boundaries.
Perform spatial join to obtain the commercial fishing reliance data within each hexagon.
Recreational Fishing Engagement
RESTORE Goal: Gulf Economy – Priority Attribute: Economically Valuable Species
DEFINITION Recreational fishing engagement measures the presence of recreational fishing through fishing activity estimates, including charter fishing pressure, private fishing pressure, and shore fishing pressure. A high rank indicates more engagement.
Data Summary
Unit: Index
Default Utility Function: The more recreational fishing engagement (higher score), the better for conservation
Area of Interest Aggregation: Maximum score from the hexagons inside the area of interest
Threshold: Discrete utility value ranging from 0 to 1
Low, Medium, Medium-High, High
Workflow:
Clip the recreational fishing engagement data to hexagon boundaries.
Perform spatial join to obtain the recreational fishing engagement data within each hexagon.
Access & Recreation - Number of Access Points
RESTORE Goal: Gulf Economy – Priority Attribute: Access and Recreation
DEFINITION This measure indicates the number of points within a 25 km buffer radius of a hexagon, where the public can access places to engage in outdoor recreation, including boat ramps and access points to parks, wildlife management areas, wildlife refuges, and National Estuarine Research Reserves.
Data Summary
Data Sources:
Roadways: Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER)/Line Shapefiles by the United States Census Bureau (USCB) (U.S. DOC 2019)
Intersections between roadways and protected areas: Protected Areas Database for the United States (PAD-US) 2.0 (Gergeley 2016)
Public boat ramps: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FL-FWCC 2019); Alabama Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (AL-DOCNR 2019); Mississippi Dept. of Marine Resources (MS-DOMR 2019); Louisiana Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries (LA-DOWF 2019); Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. (TX-PWD 2019)
Unit: Count (#)
Default Utility Function: The fewer the recreational access points (lower score), the better for conservation
This measure reflects opportunities to provide access where it is currently limited
Area of Interest Aggregation: Maximum score from the hexagons inside the area of interest
Threshold: Discrete utility value ranging from 0 to 1
Workflow:
Clip the access points data to hexagon boundaries.
Create a 25 km buffer around the centroid of each hexagon.
Obtain the counts of access points that intersect with the 25 km buffer of each hexagon.
References
AL-DOCNR. 2019. “Coastal Alabama Boating Access.” https://www.outdooralabama.com/boating/coastal-alabama-boating-access.
Colburn, LL, M Jepson, C Weng, T. Seara, J. Weiss, and J.A. Hare. 2016. “Indicators of Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in Fishing Dependent Communities Along the Eastern and Gulf Coasts of the United States.” Mar. Policy 75: 323–33. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X16302123.
FL-FWCC. 2019. “Florida Public Boat Ramp Finder.” https://public.myfwc.com/LE/boatramp/public/Default.aspx.
FL-FWS. 2019. “Florida Fws-Cooperative Land Cover, Version 3.3.” Tallahassee, FL, USA: Florida Fish; Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Gergeley, A, K.J.; McKerrow. 2016. “PAD-Us—National Inventory of Protected Areas.” Reston, VA, USA: USGS. https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/science-analytics-and-synthesis/gap/science/pad-us-data-download?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects.
Jepson, M., and L.L Colburn. 2018. “Development of Social Indicators of Fishing Community Vulnerability and Resilience in the U.s. Southeast and Northeast Regions.” https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/4438.
LA-DOWF. 2019. “Louisiana Outdoor Explorer.” https://ldwf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=4c4a4d9526c248c080c3eaa4808b9bea.
MS-DOMR. 2019. “Public Access Inventory.” http://gis.dmr.ms.gov/PublicAccess/.
TX-PWD. 2019. “Public Boat Ramps.” http://www.landscope.org/texas/tx_map_layers/tx_recreation_layers/ramps_for_boats/24760/.
TX-TPWD. 2019. “Texas Ecological Mapping Systems-Txems.” Austin, TX, USA: Texas Parks; Wildlife. https://tpwd.texas.gov/landwater/land/programs/landscape-ecology/ems/emst.
U.S. DOC, Geography Division TIGER/Line Shapefile, U.S. Census Bureau. 2019. “Series Information for the All Lines County-Based Shapefile.” https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html.
USGS. 2011. “U.S. Geological Survey Gap Analysis Program; Gap/Landfire National Terrestrial Ecosystems.” Reston, VA, USA: USGS.
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