REDLANDS, Calif., Nov. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), has now officially launched SeaSketch, an ocean planning tool supported by Esri, the world leader in GIS. Conservationists, planners, and ocean resource managers will use the GIS application and Esri's ArcGIS Online to plan sustainable ocean use management.

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"Helping people make better decisions in the environmental space is extremely important to me," said Jack Dangermond, president, Esri. "Our support of the UCSB SeaSketch project is a component of the Esri Ocean GIS Initiative, which allows people to positively impact the future through a deeper, geographic understanding of the ocean."

Researchers from the UCSB McClintock Lab designed SeaSketch to study human impacts on the ocean environment and plan responsible resource management. An agency that buys a SeaSketch subscription from UCSB can set up an online workspace and invite planners and stakeholders to design and study plan elements such as marine protected areas, aquaculture sites, and permitted fishing.

ArcGIS Online, which is a cloud-based, collaborative content management system for maps, applications, data, and other geospatial information, plays a major role in SeaSketch. It enables project managers to discover an enormous amount of geospatial data that may be helpful for their projects. Because SeaSketch incorporates Esri's ArcGIS web development technology, project managers can easily move from ArcGIS environments into SeaSketch. Organizations can leverage existing investments in ArcGIS by directly pulling published map services into SeaSketch, ensuring the application uses the most current data available. Adding GIS tools and applications to SeaSketch extends its capabilities. For example, adding Esri and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM) gives users a set of geoprocessing tools to analyze benthic terrain and classify surficial seafloor characteristics.

The United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) will use SeaSketch to facilitate dialog among businesses, organizations, and governments regarding the use of the high seas.

"SeaSketch is a great step forward in interactive marine spatial planning," said Damon Stanwell-Smith, acting head, marine assessment and decision support program of UNEP-WCMC. "Marine data can be complicated and complex to many people who need it. SeaSketch provides a friendly, intuitive tool to help people understand ocean resources and work together to create a plan."

About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.

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