121-10 Informing Shoreline and Marine Resource Planning and Management through the Washington Coastal Atlas
The Washington Coastal Atlas1 provides geographically explicit information to support informed management of Puget Sound and the outer coast of Washington, including coastal and marine spatial planning. This web-based atlas is currently used by local and Tribal governments, state and federal planners and resource managers, researchers, consultants, and interested citizens. Recently redeveloped to meet additional user needs, it features an improved user interface designed to be easily accessible be a diverse audience and the addition of important new data sets including (1) places the public can access beaches in Washington State where much of this land is privately owned (2) new digital FEMA flood maps, (3) beach closure and water quality information. These new improvements add to the information that has been historically available on the atlas such as: habitat features (e.g. wetlands and eelgrass), physical features (e.g. drift cells and slope stability), regulated features (e.g. flood zones), shoreline modifications (e.g. piers and docks) and jurisdictional delineations (e.g. cities and watersheds). The atlas also includes decades of oblique aerial photos which can be used to view current and historic shoreline features such as level of development and presence of any shoreline modifications. In addition, the Atlas provides information on land cover changes over time using NOAA Coastal Change Analysis Program data. Furthermore, the work on the Washington Coastal Atlas includes coordination with other coastal atlas applications on the west coast2, and participating in the International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN) prototype to collaborate and share data.
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