Project Background

Gulf of Maine - A Shared Resource

The Gulf of Maine region encompasses approximately 170,000 square kilometers of ocean between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. This ocean region supports a highly productive fishery along with many other valuable resources. These critical resources are managed by multiple federal, state and provincial agencies and are also studied and monitored by many academic institutions and NGO's. In order to effectively manage these resources, information collected by many organizations needs to be shared and integrated.

Dynamically Integrating Maps

Maps have long been an important means to present information about the Gulf of Maine. Most of the organizations that collect information about the Gulf generate geospatial data sets that are ultimately incorporated into maps. The ability to integrate geospatial data from various organizations into a single map is an essential need of the resource management community and the various stakeholders of a resource. The Gulf of Maine Spatial Framework Data Project recognized this need and was awarded a grant to help both U.S. and Canadian organizations implement the technology to dynamically share geospatial data over the web.

International Partnership

The Spatial Data Framework project represents a partnership of federal and state agencies, academic institutions, NGO's and private industry from Canada and the U.S. All of these organizational are committed to sharing data about the Gulf of Maine to enhance resource management and research capabilities.

Project Goals

The overall goal of this project was to stimulate cross-border cooperation over a geographic area through the use of a common geospatial data framework. The specific goals of the Gulf of Maine Spatial Framework Data Project were to:

• Identify Gulf of Maine geospatial data that are important to resource management and represent framework data
• Implement web mapping services at all the partner organizations to serve framework data sets
• Develop a portal to provide stakeholders access to maps and resources for publishing data and creating online mapping applications
• Deploy a demonstration application that leverages the online map sharing capabilities of the project and address a Gulf-wide management need
• Document the issues, difficulties, and challenges (technical, institutional and organizational) that were encountered and make recommendation for framework implementation and development

For more project information visit the Project's documentation website

Project Sponsors