Creation of a geospatial decision support tool for fisheries oceanography using ArcGIS Server

Technologies such as cloud computing and server software such as ArcGIS Server allow easier and faster access to scientific data while allowing the analysis power of a GIS to be layered on top of database tools. This presentation will describe the development of a geospatial decision support tool for fisheries oceanography data called EcoDAAT. EcoDAAT contains oceanographic and fisheries data for research studies of the early life history of various fish species in the north Pacific, Bering Sea, and the U.S. Arctic. These studies have direct application to assessment and management of the fisheries as well as monitoring the effects of climate change on ecosystem components.

EcoDAAT consolidates a number of Access databases into a single Oracle database and uses ArcServer to create data loading and selection tools. The data loading tools manage the gathering, processing, QC/QC, and loading of data into the database from their collection on the deck of a ship to their availability for analysis for a scientific manuscript. Once the data are in the database, they can be selected using either map-based or form-based queries. The use of ArcServer to geoprocess the data allows the results to be tightly coupled with ArcGIS for analysis and display of the data. Since EcoDAAT is based upon server technology, in the future it could be easily redeployed on a cloud resource to handle larger datasets and greater numbers of users. It can also be expanded to handle ancillary datasets such as weather observations, ocean circulation models, and climate indices for the north Pacific and Bering Sea.