Communities at Sea Mapper
Presentation about Communities at Sea Mapper by Kevin St. Martin of Rutgers University (May 29, 2008). A key difficulty in EBM is directly integrating human communities into the marine environment and management. These difficulties are largely a result of the lack of data specifying those areas at sea that are utilized by communities of resource users even as the marine environment is increasingly understood in spatial terms. This presentation will describe the background research for and a tool currently under development- Community at Sea Mapper- that will link port communities to resource areas. Community at Sea Mapper (still under development) will facilitate two basic functions. The first function will link port communities (as defined by the end user) to resource areas. The second function will link specific resource areas (defined by the end user) to particular port communities. The tool will facilitate the creation of maps depicting the resource areas upon which coastal communities depend and it will work to enhance impact analyses of area-based management initiatives. Since the Community at Sea Mapper tool is still under development, this presentation will focus on Dr. St. Martin's research on New Engand fishing communities informing the tool functionality. A demonstration of the tool functionality will be held at a later date after the tool is completed. Funding for development of Community at Sea Mapper is being provided by the Duke-Packard Marine EBM Tool Innovation Fund. For more information about the tool being developed and Dr. St. Martin's research, see http://mgel.env.duke.edu/proj/mebm/funded-projects/communities/index_html and http://geography.rutgers.edu/people/faculty/stmartin/research.html.