Developing a Data Pipeline for Kelp Forest Modeling

The ecology of giant kelp is complex and the formation of kelp forests is impacted by many factors, including ocean nutrient concentrations, water depth, sea surface temperature, and seafloor habitat. The Santa Barbara Channel has been home to many long-term research projects that collect data on these factors. Unfortunately, this information is in many formats and data structures making it challenging for researchers to easily incorporate it into their work. This project creates a shortcut for acquiring and using these data by synthesizing a data set of nutrient concentrations, water depth, sea surface temperature, seafloor habitat, kelp area, and kelp biomass. This data set is accompanied by a detailed data pipeline that will make it easy for researchers to add in their own data, allowing them to get from data collection to analysis faster. In addition, the complexity of giant kelp ecology makes it challenging to predict where conditions are favorable for kelp to grow, which is of particular concern for the kelp aquaculture industry. To address this concern, a series of maps depicting relative habitat suitability was created to aid the kelp aquaculture industry in siting future farms.

Acknowledgements

UCSB Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science: Natalie Dornan, MESM, PhD student

Ocean Rainforest: Courtney Schatzman, MESM, Ocean Operations and Environmental Manager

UCSB Bren School: Ruth Oliver, Assistant Professor; Samantha Stevenson, Assistant Professor; Naomi Tague, Professor

NCEAS: Daphne Virlar-Knight, MESM, Arctic Data Center Projects Data Coordinator

UCSB Marine Science Institute: Li Kui, PhD, Program Scientist

California State University Monterey Bay: Carrie Bretz, MS, Marine Science Research and Rote Program Manager

Yale University: Shubhi Sharma, MSc, PhD Student; Kevin Winner, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher

US Fish and Wildlife Service: Kirby Bartlett, MESM, Fish and Wildlife Biologist

ERM: Sidney Gerst, MESM, GIS Consultant

F.V. Eden roc: Jeff Maasson, Owner/ Operator