Developing Standard Approaches to Synthesizing, Visualizing, and Disseminating High-resolution Geophysical and Imagery Data to Advance Benthic Habitat Mapping for Offshore Wind in the Northeast
Period of performance: November 2020 – February 2022
Partners: INSPIRE Environmental
Funding: Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
Summary: INSPIRE Environmental and the Northeast Regional Ocean Council are working together to develop standard approaches to synthesizing, visualizing, and disseminating high-resolution acoustic and imagery data to advance benthic habitat mapping in the wind energy areas of the Northeast. This project will develop best practices for:
- integrating acoustic data and high-resolution imagery to map benthic habitats; and
- making those habitat data available to federal and state regulators and stakeholders in a vetted and established forum, the Northeast Ocean Data Portal
INSPIRE will collaborate with NROC to ensure that these habitat data products are compatible with existing mapping standards. NROC will convene a Seafloor Habitat Data Work Group to elicit input regarding specific benthic habitat mapping needs as well as coordinating review and vetting by stakeholders of the developed habitat data products.
Objectives: Provide regional/intermediate-scale habitat data on the Portal to support a variety of uses such as:
- Evaluate potential regional and cumulative effects of offshore wind development on benthic habitats
- Inform planning of benthic monitoring efforts pre-, during-, and post-construction in conjunction with other data available on the Portal (e.g., fish biomass, fishing effort, etc.)
- Inform planning and assessment of activities and uses that could impact benthic habitats
Seafloor Habitat Data Work Group
Purpose
- One response to recommendations made over the last several years by the NROC Ocean Planning Committee
- Complementary to the NROC Habitat Classification and Ocean Mapping (HCOM) Subcommittee
- Will inform a pilot project to use high- resolution seafloor habitat data (e.g., acoustic data and seafloor imagery) collected by the offshore wind industry to improve existing regional-scale seafloor habitat data products that vary in age, coverage, and scale.
- Methods/approaches can be transferred to high-resolution seafloor habitat data from other sources and for other uses
Members
- Expertise in:
- Offshore wind regulatory processes
- Synthesis and classification of seafloor acoustic data and seafloor imagery
- Development of interactive data exploration or analysis tools
- Development of infographics and documentation, including metadata
- From variety of organizations: offshore energy developers, federal and state agencies