Building Spatial Metaphors for the Catalogue of Oregon Marine and Coastal Information

2005 Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting
April 5-9, 2005, Denver, CO

SPECIAL SESSION: Mapping Humanity's Knowledge and Expertise in the Digital Domain

C Cooper

Dept of Geosciences, Oregon State Univ

Corvallis, OR 97331-5506

541-737-8818

DJ Wright

Dept of Geosciences, Oregon State Univ

Corvallis, OR 97331-5506

541-737-1229

Spatialization is an innovative way to expand searching capabilities for a marine/coastal reference database by using a metaphorical map framework to establish a sense of place for non-spatial information. Spatializing the Catalogue of Oregon Marine and Coastal Information, a coastal reference database, enables the marine and coastal resource community to quickly access pertinent information in a dynamically changing marine environment that will aid them in making decisions on management, protection, and conservation. Map metaphors using the self organizing map technique were used to create visualizations to aid in searching the database. Then ESRI's ArcMap and ArcIMS were used to create an interactive interface using the created visualizations, allowing user groups to to search the coastal database via the web-based spatial metaphors.

Keywords: Spatialization, web GIS, coastal management

Return to Dawn's Vita