Eric Sandoval, MSc

Benthic Ecologist

Mr. Sandoval has worked on numerous seafloor mapping projects, with both resource-management and private sector applications, from which he has drawn extensive experience in the collection and analysis of acoustic bathymetry and backscatter imagery. He has worked on GIS program development, planning and EIR documentation. His expertise is in kelp forest ecology, benthic ecology and spatial autoregressive modeling utilizing GIS technology.

In 1997, at the Sea Floor Mapping Lab (SFML) at Cal State Monterey Bay, he created a digital sidescan sonar mosaic of the Punta Gorda Ecological Reserve for a project with the California Department of Fish and Game (CDF&G). In 1998 and 1999, he assisted with single beam bathymetric, RoxAnn, and sidescan sonar surveys of the Big Creek and Point Lobos Ecological Reserves in central California, also for SFML and CDF&G. Both of these reserves support healthy Macrocystis kelp forests, the canopy and fronds of which generally confound or preclude the use of a towed sidescan sonar system, but the system Eric helped design for these surveys circumvented this problem through the use of a windsurfing board and kelp deflection bars. Eric also assisted with the processing and analysis of the survey data, and with GIS creation for these projects. He later went on to manage joint project with the SFML, CDF&G, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, compiling and merging existing marine and terrestrial GIS data for the Big Creek reserve. In the private sector, Eric has helped collect, process and interpret sidescan sonar imagery of hazards and debris from petroleum development in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela. He also taken part in a deep water acoustic surveys in the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean using the EdgeTech DeepTow multi-sensor system.

Eric is also an experienced research diver and benthic ecologist and was part of research team on two cruises in Southeast Alaska aboard the R/V Alpha Helix in 1998/99. He has also served as a Teaching Assistant, Lecturer and GPS technician for the California State University, Monterey Bay GIS courses. For the past 7 years Mr. Sandoval has been working in the public sector managing various GIS and spatial analysis projects.

 

 

 

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