Summary

Description

The groundfish Habitat Use Database (HUD) was developed by National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) scientists as part of the 2005 Pacific Coast Groundfish EFH EIS) (NMFS 2005) to address the need for habitat-use analysis supporting groundfish EFH. The 2005 database captured information on habitat use by groundfish covered under the Fisheries Management Plan as documented in the updated life history descriptions found in Appendix B.2 of the EFH Final EIS, (NMFS 2005). The groundfish life history descriptions are the product of a literature review that collected and organized information on the range, habitat, migrations and movements, reproduction, growth and development, and trophic interactions for each of the fishery management unit (FMU) species by life stage. The HUD was originally developed as a Microsoft Access relational database application by MRAG Americas Inc. consultants to the 2005 EFH EIS. The 2005 Microsoft Access HUD was a complete database package, and included forms for data entry, stored procedures to check database and referential integrity, and a reference document. The MS Access database format also provided a graphical user interface (GUI) to the database, thus allowing fisheries research scientists to build and maintain the database. In 2006, the database was migrated to an Oracle enterprise class database to better support public access and the Internet application needs of the Pacific Coast Ocean Observation System (PaCOOS) West Coast Habitat Server. This platform migration provided a more stable technology stack to build web applications upon, but also moved management and maintenance out of the hands of fisheries research staff and under the control of IT and Database Administrator staff at the NWFSC. 2005 habitat-use analysis supporting groundfish EFH.