Four American academics and researchers report the initial results of a successful effort to create and define a data model--Arc Marine--for the marine GIS (geographic information system) community that supports better management of complex spatial analyses within a variety of marine applications. Coverage includes the objectives and scope of Arc Marine; the concept of Common Marine Data Types and the main thematic layers of Arc Marine; the main components of the core data model; and grid-based and multidimensional GIS. Included are 13 case studies explaining how marine scientists and researchers are using the model in real-world applications including projects mapping the ocean floor, fisheries management in the water column, marine animal tracking in the water column and on the sea surface, nearshore and shoreline change, temporal analysis of water temperature, and the integration of numerical models. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)