The British Columbia marine ecosystem classification: Rationale, development, and verification

There is an increasing need to develop new tools and techniques for marine conservation, resource management, and planning. One of these new techniques is the application of terrestrial ecosystem approaches to the development of an equivalent marine methodology. These modified ecosystem approaches have been used in the development of the British Columbia Marine Ecosystem Classification (BCMEC) for the Pacific coast of Canada. The classification is hierarchical, and consists of four nested divisions based on physical properties and a fifth division based on current, depth, bottom substrate, bottom relief, and wave exposure. The fifth division—termed ecounits— was created at a considerably larger scale (1:250,000), and is the first example of a large‐scale marine classification applied over a large area (453,000 km2). The ecounits were developed to evaluate the boundaries and homogeneity of the four larger divisions, as well as for the application to coastal management and marine protected areas planning. This article presents the development of the ecounits, and their application toward evaluating the boundaries of the other divisions. Results indicate that large‐scale ecosystem classifications can be used as a tool in coastal management and protected areas planning. The utility of the ecounits will increase as additional physical and oceanographic properties (i.e., salinity and temperature) are incorporated.