INTRODUCING THE MARICULTURE SPATIAL ATLAS: AN AQUACULTURE SPATIAL SCREENING TOOL FOR THE U.S. EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE

With over 85,000 miles of marine coastline encompassing more than three million square nautical miles, the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is the largest in the world.  Aquaculture development within the U.S. EEZ is limited, however, to only a few shellfish and no finfish farms.  To increase investor confidence and find the most suitable space for development, NOAA is working to build spatial planning assets for sustainable screening and siting of offshore aquaculture (shellfish, finfish, and algae).  In partnership with the Department of Energy's ARPA-e MARINER program, NOAA is developing the Mariculture Spatial Atlas (MSA), a dynamic screening tool for aquaculture in the U.S. EEZ (0 - 200 nm).  This tool accesses data from a robust set of aquaculture relevant spatial data at the most suitable temporal resolution, a map viewer, data download capabilities, and a dynamic spatial reporting function designed to return a customized report for a user-defined space within the U.S. EEZ.  The customized report is designed to inform exploration and the aquaculture permitting process providing analytical information on natural resources (e.g., sensitive habitats, protected species), commerce and defense (e.g., principle ports, shipping fairways, military zones), energy and minerals (e.g., wind planning areas, sediment resources, pipelines), and biophysical and oceanographic profiles at surface and at depth (e.g., light attenuation, nitrates/phosphates, current speed) for an area of interest.  This dynamic marine spatial atlas will be one of the most comprehensive screening tool developed for aquaculture (and other ocean uses) to date.  This presentation will provide an overview of the data resources and architectural structure of the MSA and provide a pre-release demonstration.