These guidelines establish the criteria for submission of spatial data to MarineCadastre.gov. The purpose of these guidelines is to ensure that the quality and documentation of marine cadastre data meet the mission requirements of the ocean planning community and that the data are technically feasible to implement. These guidelines will be reviewed annually and updated as necessary.

The goal of MarineCadastre.gov is to provide authoritative geospatial data and supporting information to enable initial scoping, coordination, and other activities associated with ocean planning. The marine cadastral data include the spatial extent, usage, rights, restrictions, and responsibilities of marine areas, as well as other data needed to support planning, management, and conservation of submerged lands and marine spaces. The vision for MarineCadastre.gov is a distributed data system populated and maintained via web map services or web accessible folders provided by the authoritative or trusted source.

Data meeting the following requirements may be considered for inclusion.

  • Provides thematic content from one of the following areas:
    • Benthic
    • Birds
    • Corals
    • Economic
    • Elevation
    • Federal GeoRegulations
    • Jurisdictions and Boundaries
    • Marine Habitat
    • Marine Mammals and Turtles
    • Ocean Uses and Planning Areas
    • Physical and Oceanographic
  • Provides an appropriate scale and resolution for regional planning, site analysis, and permit review.
  • Has complete and accurate FGDC, ISO, or other federally approved metadata format.
  • Includes additional supporting information about the data set not readily available through FGDC/ISO metadata (e.g., common uses, reliability).
  • Does not duplicate existing viewer or registry content.
  • Originates from an authoritative or trusted source.
  • Provided by the source in one of the following formats: a table with latitude and longitude coordinates preferably in decimal degrees, shapefile, or file geodatabase. Please email the MarineCadastre.gov team to discuss other format options.
  • Preferably available as an Esri REST dynamic map service, tile cache service, or an image service on an SSL enabled server.
  • Has no copyright restrictions limiting distribution.