Seascape concepts

The toolkit represents physical geography and mapped source evidence on explicit marine spatial support. Seven implementation families each own a different mechanism; the architecture reference maps them to package modules.

flowchart LR
    A[Reviewed external sources] --> B[Acquisition and source records]
    B --> C[Marine geometry and H3 support]
    C --> D[Family processing]
    B --> D
    D --> E[Candidate products and manifests]
    E --> F[Audit and immutable release]
    F --> G[Downstream analysis]

The arrows describe the conceptual path. Individual stages and source requirements are listed in stage inputs; the diagram is not an execution plan.

The seven families

Family	What it means	Essential distinction
Spatial support	Water geometry, H3 identity, graph and neighborhoods	Full cell, clipped water, and model-area supports differ.
Seafloor physiography	GEBCO bathymetry, terrain derivatives, geomorphic units	Terrain classes are physical descriptions, not habitat presence.
Benthic substrate	Modeled rock presence and sediment texture	Interpolated source surfaces are not direct survey observations.
Coastal configuration	Shoreline proximity and character, geometric fetch, waterbody shape	Fetch is geometry, not modeled wind or waves.
Hydrologic connectivity	Freshwater sources, barriers, estuaries and water paths	Disconnected water-network distances remain null.
Biogenic habitat	Mapped seagrass, kelp, reef and composite evidence	Unknown coverage is not ecological absence.
Anthropogenic	Mapped built structures and coastal modification	Inventory absence does not prove no structure exists.

Grain, support, and interpretation

The canonical H3 model-area keys are (H3_INDEX, H3_RESOLUTION). R8 support contains cells with nonzero water overlap; R6 is the parent union of R8 cells. Some products have a different grain, such as selected outlet or mapped object relationships. Never join those tables by row order or collapse them into one value per H3 cell without a deliberate aggregation rule.

Static source snapshots carry source vintage and acquisition/build provenance. A null may mean unavailable coverage, inapplicability, or disconnected graph support; inspect each field's QC, status, and denominator. A measured zero is different. Scientific contracts and structural variables give the precise rules.