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GIS Workshop
Michael S. Coyne1 & Andrea Mosier2
1National Ocean Service, 1305 East-West Hwy, Silver Spring, MD 20902, USA
(E-mail: mcoyne@seaturtle.org)
2Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Marine Research Institute, 100 8th Ave. SE, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701, USA
(E-mail: MOSIER_A@epic7.dep.state.fl.us)
On the 4th of March 1999, as part of the 19th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation in South Padre Island, Texas, about 50 participants gathered for an informal workshop regarding the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in sea turtle research and conservation.
This meeting was organized in order to bring together GIS users to discuss available software and resources. It was intended for those currently using GIS, who know what it is and what they can do with it, but need to know about some of the latest tools. Participants were encouraged to bring examples of their work and share experiences with the application of GIS to sea turtle research.
An overall conclusion of the session was that most people working with sea turtles and GIS either use or are most familiar with ESRI's (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.) ArcView GIS and mapping software. Hence, a large part of the workshop was devoted to demonstrating several extensions to ArcView. These included: Spatial Analyst, which allows robust spatial modelling and the creation of raster-based (gridded) surfaces from point data; 3D Analyst, which allows for creating, analyzing and visualizing data in three dimensions; and Animal Movement, a free extension from the US Geological Survey which includes several methods for calculating home ranges and many other functions that those working with tracking data might find extremely useful. Also discussed were ESRI's new Tracking Analyst and Image Analysis extensions.
As a follow-up to the workshop a GIS resources page has been created at seaturtle.org <https://seaturtle.org/gis/>. The page includes links to online resources including software, ArcView extensions and scripts, mapping services, data sources and GIS publications.
A recent addition includes a bulletin board-like forum for discussing problems, tips and other issues related to sea turtles and GIS. This page will continue to grow and with user participation provide an excellent resource for those using GIS to study and conserve sea turtles.