Geospatial research of marine and estuarine issues requires specific biological, chemical, meteorological, geological, physical, and socioeconomic data related to the issue. The GIP Lab maintains spatial databases from various sources that are available to researchers, students, and resource managers.

The Baruch institute's short-term and long-term (decades) environmental monitoring of the relatively pristine North Inlet estuary, SC, have resulted in a comprehensive database of tidal, meteorological, chemical, and biological datasets. These monitoring efforts continue, and these are supplemented by data collected from nearby sites having anthropogenic impacts. Archives of in situ and remotely sensed data and ongoing research and monitoring activities facilitate the development and maintenance of GIS data layers related to bacteriology, chemical contaminants, land use and land cover, eutrophication and nutrient loading, toxicology, and watershed dynamics. Varied data collection activities and resources have enabled both the Baruch Institute and the GIP Lab to compile extensive datasets from a variety of locations along the South Carolina coast.

About the Director

Dr. Dwayne Porter holds a joint appointment with the Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences where he is director of the Geographic Information Processing Laborator, and the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. In addition he is on the faculty of the UofSC School of Earth, Ocean and Environment and directs the activities of the NOAA NERRS Centralized Data Management Office located in Georgetown, SC.