POWRE: New Collaborative Research with the Sustainable Seas Expeditions at Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary (Am. Samoa)

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This award provides funding from the POWRE program to allow Dr. Wright to expand her research interests into coastal studies, where her expertise in GIS systems can be applied to a greater range of scientific projects than in the deep sea. In order to accomplish this shift in research focus, Dr. Wright requests funding to apply her GIS expertise to coral reef ecosystem studies currently being conducted by the Sustainable Seas Expeditions (SSE) and the National Marine Sactuaries System. The PI will develop a database system for the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary (FBNMS) which is located in America Samoa. She picked the FBNMS because studies of this site are just beginning and, therefore, her GIS expertise could be an integral part of plans for data collection. The PI proposes to 1) establish a comprehensive, web-accessible data clearinghouse, with GIS maps, and data layers that can be made available to the FBNMS collaborators, 2) develop a spatial analytical procedures for ecological characterization of the coral reef, which will help to establish future survey, monitoring and management protocols, and 3) develop a brief exploration of information space modeling as a way to augment the content and accessibility of the data clearinghouse.