Development of a marine geographic information system for various data analysis and data integration in the Hawaiian exclusive economic zone

Abstract

The use of geographic information system (GIS) grew rapidly in the 1980s. Despite its popularity in land-based applications GIS has been modestly used in oceanographic applications. The increased attention to global environmental change and marine resource management are creating awareness of the potential of this technology for marine data analysis and data integration. This article investigates the feasibility of creating an efficient GIS model for various types of marine data (bathymetry, gravity, magnetic) collected by numerous national and international institutions over the past several decades in the Hawaiian EEZ. Till now only a small percentage of the Hawaiian EEZ has been mapped. The gap in one kind of data can be filled by other kind of data for an area if one can integrate different types of data. In some areas the authors can compute bathymetry within the acceptable error range where only shipboard gravity data are available and vice versa. These data were collected by different instruments and so have different resolutions and accuracies. The authors' GIS model can meet the requirements of data cataloguing, and archiving, data analysis, data integration and efficient data display and mapping.