MarineMap from Farallon Geographics

Farallon Geographics (www.fargeo.com), working with the Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara, The Nature Conservancy, and Ecotrust, has developed "MarineMap", a Web 2.0 mapping and decision support system to identify marine protected areas. I checked out the site and it contains categories that serve as layers of your map. Quite cool!

Marine Map combines an extensive catalog of GIS data, sophisticated spatial analysis, and an intuitive user interface to enable members of the public to participate in the selection of marine environments that should be designated for conservation, recreational, and commercial uses. MarineMap allows participants to identify and design marine protected areas (MPAs) interactively, and to share proposed MPA areas among stakeholders.

Farallon is helping to develop the MarineMap application to achieve several goals:

* Allow stakeholders in the MLPA Initiative to draw the boundaries and indicate the allowable uses of proposed Maps on a map of the Southern California coast.
* Automatically check that stakeholder-defined MPAs meet spatial requirements and scientific criteria defined by the California Department of Fish and Game.
* Allow MarineMap users to share and collaborate on their proposed protection areas.
* Provide robust geospatial data creation tools that do not require GIS training.
* Support mapping professionals and scientists by providing direct access to MPA data using powerful GIS tools to support offline and ad-hoc analyses.