Development of a hierarchical, variable scale marine Geographic Information System to monitor water quality in the New York Bight

A hierarchical multi-system oceanographic Geographic Information System was established for the New York Bight under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The data base has been used by the Corps to help identify ocean disposal sites for material dredged from New York harbor, as well as to monitor the growth of existing sites. Under the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 Public Law 99.662, the Corps of Engineers is mandated to conduct a feasibility study for a monitoring and information system for the NY Bight. The GIS is part of this effort by the Corps of Engineers which also includes the development of a hydrodynamic model of the Bight by the Corps of Engineers Waterways Experimental Station. Current efforts involve a high resolution mapping of the present mud dump site. The GIS currently contains over 100 data layers comprised of physical, biological and chemical measurements made in the New York Bight. The system is hierarchical in scale, comprised of three levels ranging from 500 meter cell size to 10 meter cell size. The analysis and data input has been accomplished using a multi-system approach which makes use of a number of commercial GIS systems, as well as data conversion and analysis software written at the Hunter College Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis Lab. The commercial systems used include ERDAS, ARC/INFO, GRASS and Idrisi, as well as AutoCAD for some digitizing.