Identifying deep-sea target areas for a pilot Atlantic seabed mapping project using GIS techniques

• Main Authors: Wölfl, Anne-Cathrin, Jencks, Jennifer, Johnston, Gordon, Varner, Jesse, Devey, Colin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland 2017
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/41107/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/41107/1/V12N4%20paper%20Wolfl%20et%20al.pdf; http://www.thejot.net/?page_id=837&show_article_preview=911

The shape of the seafloor, which primarily reflects the geological processes which have occurred there, influences both ocean circulation and seafloor habitats. A prerequisite for sustainable ocean governance, including the designation of marine protected areas to conserve threatened ecosystems or habitats, is, therefore, the availability of good bathymetric maps. Despite decades of ocean mapping, we still lack this detailed bathymetric information over large parts of the Atlantic seafloor. In an effort to change this situation, the US, Canadian and EU governments, under the “Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation,” established an Atlantic Seabed Mapping International Working Group (ASMIWG) to develop plans to map the entire Atlantic. A first step in this effort is to define 400 x 400 km target areas for a pilot mapping project. Here we present the selection algorithm used to define these pilot areas based on carefully chosen and publicly available parameters of the marine environment that are of interest to various stakeholders. The methodology involved a GIS-based overlay technique that included the parameters of the marine environment as individual layers and combined them in order to obtain information about the suitability of a location as a target area. The results reveal the suitability of areas throughout the North Atlantic and highlight three potential pilot mapping sites.