A compilation of ocean water quality (temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen) data at ¼ degree spatial resolution for the entire United States Exclusive Economic Zone. The dataset is derived from the ESRI Ecological Marine Unit (EMU) dataset, which was assembled from non-supervised statistical clustering of over 52 million points from NOAA’s World Ocean Atlas (2013) WoA database, an authoritative 57 year archive of global water column data. This derived dataset is divided into three separate point shapefiles, each representing either temperature (degrees Celsius), salinity (practical salinity units), or dissolved oxygen (mg/L). Values represent a climatological average. Each shapefile is formatted such that a single point location (i.e., unique associated latitude and longitude) contains a unique column entry for a given depth interval. Depth intervals are variable from 5 m near the surface to 100 m in the deeper regions (> 2000 m) for a total of 102 depth levels. All disclaimers provided by the original dataset authors apply to this derived dataset. For detail on these disclaimers, please refer to the following reference: Sayre, R., J. Dangermond, D. Wright, S. Breyer, K. Butler, K. Van Graafeiland, M.J. Costello, P. Harris, K. Goodin, M. Kavanaugh, N. Cressie, J. Guinotte, Z. Basher, P. Halpin, M. Monaco, P. Aniello, C. Frye, D. Stephens, P. Valentine, J. Smith, R. Smith, D.P. VanSistine, J. Cress, H. Warner, C. Brown, J. Steffenson, D. Cribbs, B. Van Esch, D. Hopkins, G. Noll, S. Kopp, and C. Convis. 2017. A New Map of Global Ecological Marine Units – An Environmental Stratification Approach. Washington, DC: American Association of Geographers. 36 pages.

These data show the 17 national marine sanctuaries in the United States. The National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA) authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to designate and protect areas of the marine environment with special national significance due to their conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, scientific, cultural, archeological, educational or esthetic qualities as national marine sanctuaries.

As part of the Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network's Estuarine Nutrient Enrichment Monitoring program, Network staff and cooperators continued to monitor seagrass cover and health at several park units. This file contains seagrass monitoring data collected between 2003 and 2024 field season at Assateague Island National Seashore, Cape Cod National Seashore, and Fire Island National Seashore.

As part of the Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network's Estuarine Nutrient Enrichment Monitoring program, Network staff and cooperators continued to monitor seagrass cover and health at several park units. This file contains seagrass monitoring data collected between 2003 and 2024 field season at Assateague Island National Seashore, Cape Cod National Seashore, and Fire Island National Seashore.

These data show the location of ocean observing assets within U.S. waters, and the physical parameters generally collected at each platform or gauge.

This data set represents the extent, approximate location and type of estuarine and marine wetland habitats in the United States and its Territories. These data delineate the areal extent of wetlands and surface waters as defined by Cowardin et al. (1979), which represents a biological definition of wetlands and deepwater habitats. There is no attempt to define the limits of proprietary jurisdiction of any Federal, State, or local government, or to establish the geographical scope of the regulatory programs of government agencies. Some wetland habitats may be under represented or excluded in certain areas because of the limitations of aerial imagery as the primary data source used to detect wetlands. These habitats include seagrasses or submerged aquatic vegetation that are found in the intertidal and subtidal zones of estuaries and near shore coastal waters and also some deepwater reef communities (coral or tuberficid worm reefs). These habitats, because of their depth and water clarity, go undetected by most aerial imagery. By policy, the Service also excludes certain types of "farmed wetlands" as may be defined by the Food Security Act or that do not coincide with the Cowardin et al. definition. Contact the Service's Regional Wetland Coordinator for additional information on what types of farmed wetlands are included on wetland maps. This dataset should be used in conjunction with the Wetlands_Project_Metadata layer, which contains project boundaries, specific wetlands mapping procedures and information on dates, scales and emulsion of imagery used to map the wetlands within specific project boundaries.