OBIS-SEAMAP Shapefiles
General
The OBIS-SEAMAP observation and effort / telemetry trackline data can be downloaded as an ESRI shapefile. Shapefiles are generated from standardized OBIS-SEAMAP data, not from the data originally provided by data providers. They include publicly available fields: locations, date/time of the observations and the species identification.
You might want to refer to 'Shapefile FAQ' section to get a quick answer.
How to download
- Find the dataset or species you are interested in and visit the Species Profile Page or Dataset Page.
- Switch to [Download] tab below the map.
- Read 'OBIS-SEAMAP Terms of Use ' and agree to it by clicking 'Agree'. Otherwise, click 'Disagree', in which case, you can't download the shapefile.
- Choose 'Data Selection' option.
- Click [Shapefile] button.
- When the browser's save dialog appears, select the folder you want to save it in.
- Unzip the downloaded file.
What included
The zipped download file includes the following files depending on the type (platform) of the dataset.
| |
Observation
(boat, plane) |
Telemetry
(tag) |
| FGDC_SEAMAP.xsl |
Yes |
Yes |
| readme.txt |
Yes |
|
| Point observations (seamapxxx) |
Yes |
No |
| Point telemetry location (seampxxx) |
No |
Yes |
| Ship/plane effort lines (seamapxxx) |
Yes, if available |
No |
| Animal track lines (seamapxxx) |
No |
Yes, if available |
| TermsOfUse.htm |
Yes |
Yes |
'xxx' in 'seamapxxx' indicates the dataset id, which you can see 'ID' row in Dataset Detail page (effort or telemetry track lines has a different ID).
Shapefile field definition
Observation and telemetry point data
Observation and telemetry shapefiles have the same field definition.
| Field |
Type |
Description |
| datasetid |
Long integer |
Dataset ID seen in Dataset Detail page. |
| rowid |
Long integer |
Row id unique among the shapefile. |
| last_mod |
Text |
Date and time the dataset was last modified. Note that the Shapefile may change due to error correction, data updates etc. |
| latitude |
Double |
Latitude of the point. |
| longitude |
Double |
Longitude of the point. |
| sp_code |
Text |
Species code that the data provider uses to identify the species. |
| sp_tsn |
Long integer |
Taxonomic Serial Number for the species organized by Integrated Taxonomic Information System. |
| notes |
Text |
Any notes/comments the data provider recorded. |
| sp_count |
Long integer |
Number of animals observed at the location. May have different definition, count methods. Contact the data provider for more detail. |
| sp_series |
Text |
For telemetry dataset only. Identify individual animal. |
| obs_date |
Date |
Date of the observation. |
| obs_time |
Text |
Time part of the day. |
| owner |
Text |
User account name who has management privilege for the dataset. Usually no meanings for users. |
| scientific |
Text |
Species scientific name. |
| sp_common |
Text |
Species English common name, if any. |
| sp_class |
Text |
Class of the species. |
| provider |
Text |
The institution name of the data provider. |
Effort and animal track lines
Ship/plane effort line and animal track line shapefiles have the same field definition.
| Field |
Type |
Description |
| datasetid |
Long integer |
Dataset ID seen in 'Effort'/'Trackline' row in Dataset Detail page. This is different from that for the related observation/telemetry dataset. |
| rowid |
Long integer |
Row id unique among the shapefile. |
| beglon |
Double |
Longitude of the beginning point of the line segment. |
| beglat |
Double |
Latitude of the beginning point of the line segment. |
| endlon |
Double |
Longitude of the end point of the line segment. |
| endlat |
Double |
Latitude of the end point of the line segment. |
| begdate |
Date |
Date of the beginning point of the line segment. |
| begtime |
Text |
Time part of the day (begdate). |
| enddate |
Date |
Date of the end point of the line segment. |
| endtime |
Text |
Time part of the day (enddate). |
| distance |
Double |
Distance in nautical mile of the line segment. a '-1' indicates the calculation fails. |
| speed |
Double |
Averaged speed in knot at which the ship/plane/animal travels along the line segment. Distance divided by the time elapsed. a '-1' indicates the distance calculation fails and speed cannot be obtained. |
OBIS-SEAMAP Stylesheet for ArcGIS
OBIS-SEAMAP Stylesheet for ArcGIS is a stylesheet for metadata that nicely visualizes taxonomic information added to FGDC-compliant metadata in ArcCatalog. Taxonomic part of the metadata is compliant with Biological Data Profile organized by National Biological Information Infrastructure (Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata; Part 1: Biological Data Profile. FGDC-STD-001.1-1999. Defined by National Biological Information Infrastructure) and all the datasets in OBIS-SEAMAP has taxonomic information put in the metadata.
The stylesheet extends the original stylesheet named FGDC ESRI, which is pre-defined in ArcCatalog, adding a column titled Taxonomy to show taxonomy elements.
Shapefile FAQ
- Why is 'time' field of text type?
- The database that ESRI shapefiles are based on (DBF) does not support Time type and a Date type field cannot hold time part due to the field size limit. Thus, we decided to hold time values in a text field.
- I want to sort the attribute table by date/time. How can I do it when date and time is broken into the two fields?
- 1. Open the attribute table (in ArcMap or ArcCatalog).
2. Select the date and time fields. The two fields should be highlighted in blue.
3. Keeping them highlighted, right-click and select 'Sort Ascending/Descending'.
- I don't see the effort shapefile in the zipped file?
- Not all the datasets have effort data. You can make sure if the dataset has effort data in Datasets page ('yes' in 'effort' column) or Dataset Detail page ('Effort' or 'Trackline' row).
- Is a shapefile provided for a species I'm interested in?
- No. Observations of a certain species are dynamically extracted from our huge database. Generating a shapefile for the species will take a long time and affect the web site performance. So we do not currently provide shapefiles for species. However, you can download the observations of a certain species in CSV format, which you can generate shapefiles with ArcCatalog.
