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GLERL 2005 Milestone Reports
< GLERL 2005 Milestone main page
GOAL: Ecosystem
Scientist: Dr. David Reid (GLERL)
NOAA Performance Objective: Increase number of regional coastal and marine ecosystems delineated with approved indicators of ecological health and socio-economic benefits that are monitored and understood.
NOAA Corporate Measure: TBD
Ecosystem Research Program Performance Measure: PM1: Extent of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems explored, mapped, characterized, and inventoried and publicly available.
OAR Performance Measure: Increase number, accuracy, and regional specificity of U.S. climate, water, and coastal resource products
NOAA Program: Ecosystem Research
Milestone: Complete and publish new 5-meter bathymetric map of Lake Huron. (David Reid, GLERL)
Purpose: To develop highly detailed bathymetric maps of the Great Lakes using existing archived data from both the U.S. and Canada. Three Great Lakes maps were previously published (Lakes Michigan, Erie, and Ontario) and a special bathymetry was prepared for the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Lake Huron will be the fourth of five Great Lakes maps planned.
Efforts and Results (to date): GLERL and NGDC have worked together with the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) to generate bathymetric contours for all of Lake Huron. The contours were derived from National Ocean Service (NOS) and CHS existing sounding data. This NOAA/CHS collaborative effort produced over two hundred hand-drawn bathymetric contour sheets. The contour sheets have been digitized and the digital contours have been loaded into a GIS system for edge matching and database quality assurance. The compiled bathymetric contours were used to create a high-resolution grid from which a color shaded relief image has been generated (Figure 1)
Customer(s): Based on previous experience with published maps of lakes Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, interest in the bathymetric map for Lake Huron will be diverse. Great Lake researchers, state and local planners, fisherman (both sport and commercial), recreational boaters, and educators, to name a few, will all use this product. Several such groups have already inquired as to it’s availability.
Cause Factors (if milestone not met): The process of digitizing the hand-drawn bathymetric contour sheets was more time consuming than expected. Due to the size and cost of the digitizing portion of the project, NGDC was required to solicit bids from three potential vendors. The vendors had to be contacted, provided with information about the job requirements and an appointment to view the sheets had to be made with each potential vendor. The process of securing an appropriate vendor proved to be more time consuming than expected. However, all the required work was accomplished and a draft map has been generated (see Figure 1, which was prepared from the digitized data), it only needs final quality assurance and addition of appropriate annotation.
Revised Completion Date (if milestone not met): The 5-meter bathymetric map of Lake Huron will be published and made available online by the end of FY05 Q4.
Figure 1: Draft Lake Huron bathymetry map, complete except for annotation of appropriate landmarks and geographic coordinates.
Last updated: 2005-07-19 mbl