NOAA Releases New Mapping Tool for Essential Fish Habitat
Convenient One-Stop for Essential Fish Habitat Maps

Tom Bigford
NOAA Fisheries Service

December 17, 2008 — NOAA Fisheries Service has made available online its Essential Fish Habitat Mapper.  This web-based tool is the first of its kind to display essential fish habitat data and maps nationally.  

The Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requires that federal Fishery Management Plans identify and describe habitat necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity.  Managers then can use this information to consider specific protection measures for these areas. 

The new interactive Mapper enables the public and managers to query information from multiple Fishery Management Plans simultaneously to view habitat maps and species lists for a specific location. The Mapper uses state-of-the-art web technology to create a platform for distributing NOAA Fisheries Service and other spatial habitat data, providing a user-friendly and highly interactive upgrade to the static maps of the past. 

The convenient one-stop EFH Mapper tool enables users to generate essential fish habitat maps for more than 100 species groups and displays more than 100 offshore areas identified as habitat areas of particular concern.  

The Mapper is located at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/habitat/habitatprotection/efh/index_GIS.htm.