Since 1969, Esri has cultivated collaborative relationships with partners who share our commitment to solving Earth’s most pressing challenges with geographic expertise and rational resolve. As a result, Esri software products and services are used in more than 350,000 organizations worldwide, including most of the world's governments, and more than 11,000 colleges and universities. Esri’s mission is to inspire and enable people to positively impact their future through a deeper understanding of the changing world around them. This understanding involves a commitment to ocean science and maritime industry. In 2012 Esri launched a major ocean GIS initiative across the company (e.g., in Professional Services, Software Development, Software Products, and Industry Solutions/Marketing). This initiative was initially motivated in great part by the need to provide effective mapping tools and techniques to respond to great disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the US Gulf of Mexico and the Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It is also motivated by a sincere desire to assist in the implementation of the US National Ocean Policy and similar efforts globally, particularly in the area of seabed mapping and marine spatial planning for which GIS provides a crucial decision-support engine. As such Esri continues to expand its portfolio with emphases on hydrographic matters including nautical charting, bathymetric data, Marine SDI and Marine Spatial Planning, applications for commercial shipping, maritime defense and intelligence, and offshore energy, and oceanographic science.
Esri also continues to focus on a greater engagement with the ocean science community, as complex ocean science questions and data are increasingly used to inform the responsible use and governance of the oceans, as well as effective management and conservation. To support a better overall understanding of our coast and ocean, Esri continues to improve and expand its products, tools, services, partnerships, and connections with the broader ocean community and to evolve the Blue Economy.
Esri will be contributing to the Seabed 2030 Project by jointly engaging with the wider geospatial and technology innovation community to inform about the Seabed 2030 vision and the collection of bathymetric data. Together, we will be sharing and promoting methods and best practices in technological innovation, infrastructure, and solutions for ocean mapping and bathymetric data management challenges.