From a single country coastal border, how to generate a parallel line of Exclusive Economic Zone at a distance of 200 Nautical miles? Also between two countries which are located nearby (~50km), how to create EEZ line between them? Is it possible from ArcGIS?
The legal definition of EEZ is quite complex. Many countries are in the process of extending their EEZs beyond 200 NM using geologic and geomorphic criteria defined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Even the "simple" 200 NM zone is measured from another complex "baseline". And the EEZ boundary between countries separated by less than 200 NM can settled by international tribunals at any arbitrary line.
Any automated system for deriving EEZs would be approximate at best, and wrong in many important areas. Best to use official, up-to-date shape files based on the latest legal definitions where possible.
The data already exist at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/marbound/download.php
You can find the shapefile at http://code.google.com/p/vmstools/downloads/list
Good. I also have a EEZ shape file for the world countries. Even though for maximum accuracy of our coastal boundary drawn by us, I asked. Thanking you..
The legal definition of EEZ is quite complex. Many countries are in the process of extending their EEZs beyond 200 NM using geologic and geomorphic criteria defined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Even the "simple" 200 NM zone is measured from another complex "baseline". And the EEZ boundary between countries separated by less than 200 NM can settled by international tribunals at any arbitrary line.
Any automated system for deriving EEZs would be approximate at best, and wrong in many important areas. Best to use official, up-to-date shape files based on the latest legal definitions where possible.
As Rex Sanders said, the definition of the EEZ needs some legal information. The baseline used is not the coast line. For each country, you can get the official list of the baseline points from the following site: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/regionslist.htm. You can choose the region and country and see all the information of the legal definition of the EEZ for each country. The following document: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/doalos_publications/publicationstexts/The%20Law%20of%20the%20Sea_Baselines.pdf contains the information about the criteria to apply to construct the baseline. From that baseline, you can create a buffer of 200 NM. You need to pay attention to the projection you use when you measure distances.
If you want to do it in manually in ArcGIS10 (thats what I have at Hand),
1. just start editing the line-layer and
2. select the coastline(s).
3. Then click editor (in the editor-toolbar) and there the "Copy parallel"-Command.
It is important that mapunits are set correctly, because the tool uses them.
For bigger datasets you could try the Buffer-Tool from the toolbox.
The EEZ should be created using baseline of each country. In principle we can develop program to generate a parallel line. However, for those who do not know programming the software like CARIS LOS or Geocap could be alternate. They are expensive but accepted by the UNCLOS for submission of the outer limit of continental shelf.
Considering the information you need (like what Gustavo Martínez Puljak and Rex Sanders shared about it), of course it is possible using ArcGIS for such work! its all about the basic information which really need to be accessible and also accurate enough. After measuring the 200 NM buffer zone, if it is necessary, you can classify the zone into the different types of economic and make their own data layer and finally have your output layers.
My point is the buffer generated in ArcGIS does not fulfill definition of EEZ zone. The thing is quite complicated because ArcGIS works in plan coordinate system. The EEZ and other lines defined by UNCLOS should be computed on geoid surface and computation is very complicated using various of knowledge of Higher geodesie which the ArcGIS does not have. As I explained before, in my experience, there are only two software packages for these kind of computation is CARIS LOS and Geocap. Many countries used these software in computation for submission of outer limit of continental shelf as UN requested in 2009.
I would have to agree with many of the answers above - better to download a shapefile. I use http://www.marineregions.org/downloads.php.
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