About this Website

This biogeographic assessment represents the continuation of an ongoing partnership between the National Marine Sanctuary Program (NMSP) and the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS). The pur­pose of this collaboration is to provide sanctuary managers with basic information on the distribution of marine flora and fauna relevant to the national marine sanctuaries they manage. This particular work, conducted in collaboration with the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) and members of the local research community, builds on a previous assessment developed for California’s other three national marine sanctuaries (NOAA, 2003). These efforts were undertaken specifically to support the management plan revision process mandated for each sanctuary. This process evaluates the degree that each sanctuary is meeting its goals and allows an opportunity for the public to determine if there are new directions or issues that they feel the sanctu­ary should address. One issue raised by the public during the CINMS management plan revision process was whether the sanctuary boundaries should be expanded. A significant portion of this document, therefore, is de­voted toward providing a biogeographic assessment of the differing boundary concepts previously developed by CINMS in conjunction with the Sanctuary Advisory Council and general public. This was accomplished by a thorough analysis of the biogeographic datasets provided to the analytical team by the local research commu­nity. Additionally, the data gathered, analyses performed, and patterns of distribution observed should provide invaluable information to support science, education, and support other spatially-explicit management deci­sions.

The results of this assessment are available via both hard copy and DVD. Also available on the DVD are the data utilized to develop the Habitat Suitability Models along with the ArcGIS project files used to de­velop many of the figures within this report (e.g. species distribution, substrate and oceanographic maps). For more information on this effort please visit the NCCOS Biogeography Branch webpage dedicated to this project at: http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/ecosystems/sanctuaries/chanisl_nms.html or direct questions and comments to:

Mark Monaco
Biogeography Branch Manager
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
1305 East-West Hwy. (SSMC4, N/SCI-1)
Silver Spring , MD 20910
Phone: (301) 713-3028 x160
Email: mark.monaco@noaa.gov

Or

Chris Mobley
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Manager
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
113 Harbor Way, Suite 150
Santa Barbara , CA 93109
Phone: (805) 884-1465
Email: chris.mobley@noaa.gov

Software Installation and Requirements:

ArcView® GIS:

For those users with ESRI GIS software installed on their computers, there are shapefiles included on this DVD. The user may utilize a variety of software to view the imagery mosaics, including ENVI, PCI, ArcGIS or ArcView 3.1® or higher.

Adobe® Acrobat PDF Reader®:

The text report and some maps are offered in portable document format (PDF) and are located in the Report and Maps sections of the DVD respectively. Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software that allows you to view, navigate within, and print PDF files across major computing platforms. The PDF documents on this DVD are best viewed using Adobe® Acrobat Reader® version 4.0 or higher. To learn more about Adobe Acrobat Reader or to download the software, visit the Adobe Home Page.

WinZip Software:

To allow us to include a large amount of data on the DVD, many of the data sets have been compressed using WinZip®. This software package is available on the Internet at this site: http://www.winzip.com/.

Disclaimer:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Biogeography Branch produced this data DVD. The NOAA Biogeography Branch does not guarantee the accuracy of the geographic features or attributes. Please see the metadata records for each data set for complete information on the source, limitations, and proper use.