Table of Contents
- Homepage and Application Features
- Mapping Application
- Table Descriptions
- Notes and Tips
- Contact Information
The South Florida Sportfishing Geodatabase (SFSGeo) application is found within NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center webpage at http://www.sefsc.noaa.gov/sfsgeo/. This web address links the user to a homepage (Figure 1) that gives some background on the underlying motivation for the development of the tool. This version of the SFSGeo measures the monthly and annual counts of sportfishing vessels observed in ten minute square aggregated fishing areas (AFAs) off the coast of Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, and Monroe counties. The vessel counts are available for private and for-hire fishing modes from 1991 to 2003. Additionally, the number and percentage of vessels that are located over reef tract is provided in tabular format.
Links are available on the homepage to access this User Guide document as well as the Design document.
The Design document provides background information and details the methods used in the processing of the datasets in order to link all the data on the AFA grid.
Additionally, the SFSGeo homepage lists email links to contact the principle investigators of the project to obtain additional information or request access.
Logging InRegistered users with a login and password can access the mapping application from this page after a successful log in.
Users may click on the "Forgot your Password?" link to contact application staff to verify their username or reset their password.
Menu SystemThe menu system (Figure 2) for this application provides access to the SEFSC web site via the "SEFSC Home" link. In addition, users can return to the application home page by clicking on the "SFSGeo Home" link.
The map interface is accessible via the "Map" link and this help document will be displayed once the user clicks on the "Help" link.
The "Log Out" link terminates the session.
User ProfileUsers can modify their profiles by clicking on the
"My Profile" link. This page (Figure 3)
allows the user to modify their password, email address, last name, and first name. Users can only modify their own information and do not have access to other
profiles. Any attempt to do so will result in the Error page shown in
Figure 4.
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Once the mapping application has been accessed, the user can view the base layers of the AFA grid, the bathymetric data, and the reef habitat (Figure 5).
Each of the themes in the legend contains a tooltip that may be accessed by scrolling over the theme headings.
Tooltips are used to provide a definition or description of a heading in a table or legend, and are used throughout the application to assist the user.
For example, the "For Hire (1991)" theme tooltip (Figure 6)
defines this item as "The number of vessels observed in a given AFA as a percentage of all vessels observed for that specific mode and year"
and refers to the individual grid cells on the map.
Legend FeaturesThe Bathymetric Data ranges from 0 to 2500m in 500m intervals
and the Reef Habitat is designated by patch or platform margin reefs as defined by the Florida Marine Research Institute (FMRI).
Each of these base layers may be turned on and off by checking the appropriate boxes and clicking the submit button.
Below the base layers, there are two dropdown menus: Fishing Mode and Year.
The user can select to display the commercial recreational vessel data (For Hire) or the private recreational vessel data (Private)
for a particular year ranging from 1991 to 2003.
Once a selection has been made from both menus, clicking the submit
button displays the Distribution of Fishing Effort within the AFA grid as a percentage of the total annual effort for that fishing mode (See Section 3).
The distribution of Vessel Density in percentages is displayed in a static legend.
Map ToolsBelow the map, there are three Map Tools available to adjust the map display.
Zoom-in and Zoom-out increase or decrease the resolution of the map. Re-center keeps the map display at the same resolution,
but allows the focus of the map to be placed on a different area.
A fourth tool, Identify AFA displays a table of the specific attributes of a particular grid-cell when that grid-cell is selected (See Section 3).
For example, Figure 7
illustrates the map that is displayed when the categories of For Hire and 1991 are selected and Figure 8
shows the selection of a cell to obtain additional information.
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Below the map displayed in Figure 8 above,
there are two tables of data with descriptive statistics for the vessel densities, densities of coral reef habitat, and the relationship of the vessels fishing over the reef (Figure 9).
AFA StatisticsThe AFA Statistics table (Figure 9) describes the spatial dimensions of the different layers in the map.
The first column, AFA, shows the breakdown of the entire AFA grid into the total coverage and the area covered with vessels observed in the selected mode and year.
The second column, AFA with Reef, shows the breakdown of the AFA grid containing coral reef into the total coverage area and AFAs covered with vessels observed in the selected mode and year.
In the third column, Reef Area, the total amount of actual reef area observed within the AFA grid is shown for the entire AFA grid and the AFAs covered with vessels observed in the selected year and mode.
The fourth column, Percent Reef Area, gives the percentage of coral reef area within the AFA given by dividing the first column into the third.
Note that in all cases, the third row, Percent, gives the percentage of AFA coverage for the different columns as the second row divided by the first.
Monthly Distribution of Sportfishing VesselsThe Monthly Distribution of Sportfishing Vessels table provides a description of the number and percentage of vessels observed in each month over total area and over reef tract for the selected year and mode.
The Sum column lists the total over all months of observed annual effort and the final row of the table indicates the share of the vessel count observed over AFAs with coral reef in any give month for the selected year and mode.
More detailed information is provided when an individual grid cell is selected. Figure 10 displays the two tables that are produced when Identify AFA is selected and a particular AFA grid cell is clicked.
Selected AFA StatisticsThe Selected AFA Statistics table gives annual, monthly, and area summary statistics for the selected AFA, year, and mode.
Annual statistics include the total number of vessels observed in the selected AFA and the share total vessels for the selected year and mode that occurred in the selected AFA.
The monthly summary statistics give the monthly average, minimum, maximum, median, and standard deviation number of vessels observed in the selected AFA for the selected year and mode.
Finally, the area statistics show the total area of the selected AFA, area of coral reef within the selected AFA, and the share of the selected AFA covered by coral reef habitat.
Monthly Distribution of Sportfishing Vessels in the Selected AFAThe Monthly Distribution of Sportfishing Vessels in the Selected AFA table lists the number of vessels observed in each month within the selected AFA.
The table also shows the monthly percentage of the total vessels observed for the selected year and mode. In the Data Sources row the number of datasets that the observations came from is identified.
Figure 11 shows how the user can scroll over these numbers to view a tooltip that list the datasets and the number of observations that were derived from each dataset where HB=head boat survey,
MRFSS=Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey, AS=Aerial Survey, and BNP=Biscayne National Park Creel Survey.
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- Any blanks in the table are due to the fact that no observations exist for that month.
These months will therefore not be used in the descriptive statistics calculations.
A zero represents a "true zero" in the sense that a survey was made, but no vessels were observed.
In order to reset the grid back to the annual data after the data for an individual AFA cell has been selected, click the submit button again and this will refresh the view.
- Clicking an AFA study area with no data will indicate that there is no aggregated data in the selected AFA.
- Clicking an area on the map outside the AFA study area will indicate no AFA was selected.
- You can return to the year and mode summary tables by pressing the submit button at any time.
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David W. Carter
david.w.carter@noaa.gov
Carlos Rivero
carlos.rivero@noaa.gov
NOAA Southeast Fishery Science Center
75 Virginia Beach Drive
Miami, FL 33149
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