Ocean and coastal management is a complex and multi-layered system of laws, organizations, and strategies. Authorities are fragmented among a variety of federal, state, and local agencies which can result in redundant efforts, inefficiency, and confusion. Because of this, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Coastal Services Center created a GIS-based Web site christened Digital Coast: Legislative Atlas. The innovative Web site helps users to better understand the complex legal jurisdictions and regulations of the nation's oceans and coasts by visualizing information in a dynamic online mapping application.

Legislative Atlas gives users the ability to view the geography associated with ocean and coastal laws and the potential relationships that exist between these laws. The atlas is aimed at resource managers involved in regional ocean management and related initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels. The atlas serves resource managers of all GIS ability levels from those just beginning to get their feet wet with desktop GIS, to those already aboard an enterprise GIS.

When using the atlas, resource managers can query and view the spatial relationships between legislation and other pertinent marine boundaries to analyze gaps and overlaps in a region's ocean and coastal laws and regulatory framework.  The atlas also contains the regions, districts, and planning areas of federal management agencies with respect to ocean and coastal activities. The ability to visualize and download these planning areas helps resource managers in identifying contacts within federal agencies for a particular area of interest.

In addition to its mapping application, Legislative Atlas features a database of relevant coastal and ocean laws that are geographically searchable. Resource managers can search federal and state laws and read summaries of each law via links to the supporting U.S. Codes or state statutes. The search can be refined by state, region, management issue, or federal agency of interest.

Currently, the atlas gives users access to a myriad of laws, but the legislative index is still at low tide. Prioritizing the relevant legislation that gets mapped is a lengthy process for each region. The ongoing development of Legislative Atlas relies on a collaborative effort of meetings and targeted outreach on the part of regional councils, resource managers, and the NOAA. Due to the project's vastness, new data will be added in waves.

Federal laws are available for most of the continental U.S., and state laws are available for the Gulf of Mexico region. The next launch, scheduled for fall 2008, will include federal laws for the entire U.S. including Hawaii, Alaska, the Great Lakes, and Pacific and Caribbean Islands, and state laws for California, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. State laws for other regions, including Oregon and Washington, are scheduled to set sail in 2009.

For more information on Digital Coast: Legislative Atlas, visit http://www.csc.noaa.gov/legislativeatlas or contact Adam Bode at adam.bode@noaa.gov.