Coastal Services Center

The GIS Integration and Development Program

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South Carolina Marsh Island Assessment

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Providing South Carolina coastal managers with a spatial inventory and decision-support tool for managing impacts to marsh islands.

Overview

With little understanding of the size, distribution, and natural and cultural properties of the back barrier marsh islands in the state, the South Carolina coastal management community expressed a need for spatial and attribute information and a consistent method for analyzing the relative sensitivity of these resources. The NOAA Coastal Services Center partnered with the South Carolina Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (SC OCRM) and the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in this 18-month project to better assess development and conservation concerns involving marsh islands in South Carolina.

Center staff helped to create a spatial data layer of marsh islands in the SC OCRM's critical area, then designed a stakeholder-accepted, geographic information system (GIS)-based assessment tool for the agency. Project results will assist SC OCRM in evaluating permit requests and assessing the islands for their conservation or development priority.

Project Outcomes

As a result of this project, coastal managers in South Carolina are able to make more-informed decisions concerning the marsh islands with help from:

• South Carolina Marsh Islands Data Set and Metadata
• A Marsh Island Assessment Tool: ArcGIS 8.3 extension housed at South Carolina Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management agency for use by permitting project managers
• A Marsh Island Ecological Characterization (.pdf) (Requires Adobe® Reader®) produced by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and based on field surveys conducted for this study

For information, contact Nancy.Cofer-Shabica@noaa.gov