The marine features atlas encompasses marine habitats, marine mammals, seabirds, oceanography and ecosystem components that are not included in the fish and shellfish atlases. Most of the maps presented here are contributions from others organizations including Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site and Living Oceans Society.

Our collective understanding of the marine ecosystems around us is by no means complete. In fact, the data shown in these maps represents only what we know – not the breadth of information that we do not know. So consider these living documents that will grow and mature in keeping with current research and knowledge.

Living Oceans Maps

Living Oceans Society has been actively involved in mapping of marine features and marine ‘habitat’ modeling throughout the British Columbia coastline for several years. The results of two marine habitat modeling analyses by Jeff Ardron of Living Oceans Society are shown below.

Bottom complexity is a unique measure, developed to show how ‘complex’ (ie. convoluted) the sea bottom topography is relative to areas surrounding it. The Conservation Utility map is a result of the MARXAN computer model. In very simplistic terms, the model uses available physical and biological datasets for generally fixed marine features – such as depth and bottom type, kelp and eelgrass – for input, generating areas of high to low potential conservation value based on parameters set for the model run. Results of this model have particular utility in broad-scale marine planning. For more information about MARXAN, download Marine Ecosystem Spatial Analysis of BC from the Living Oceans Library.

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