By Mark Gold, D.Env.
In 1962, Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking Silent Spring exposed the devastating environmental harm caused by synthetic pesticides including DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane). In the book, she wrote, ”How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?” The book helped catalyze the environmental movement of the 1960s and led to the eventual DDT application ban in the United States in 1972. I was born a year after Silent Spring was published and nine years before the DDT ban, yet here we are a full half-century after the ban with DDT still causing ecological harm and posing public health risks to exposed populations.
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By Mark Gold, D.Env.
By now, everyone in the nation, if not globally has heard about California’s groundbreaking new circular economy and plastic pollution reduction law: SB 54. Senator Ben Allen, an OPC council member, authored the bill and received tremendous support from the Newsom administration, leadership in the legislature, the environmental community, manufacturers, and waste managers: an extraordinary and unprecedented coalition. Governor Newsom, always ready to seize the day, put California into the global environmental limelight with a stroke of a pen on the same day as the Supreme Court condemned millions of people to devastating public health threats through a court ruling that prevents the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from taking broad greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction action on power plants. California’s move to an extended producer responsibility and circular economy approach to plastic pollution reduction builds on the state’s marine debris leadership through plastic bag bans, the ocean litter prevention strategy (PDF) developed by OPC and NOAA, and the world’s first comprehensive microplastics strategy (PDF).
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By Mark Gold, D.Env.
Wednesday morning at the UN Ocean Conference started with a session entitled, “Interactive Dialogue: Minimizing and Addressing Ocean Acidification, Deoxygenation and Ocean Warming”. Not exactly a title that inspires confidence that major action was on the agenda (I am skeptical when the word “addressing” is part of an action agenda!). I couldn’t have been more wrong. The chair of the session was John Kerry, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate, and as part of a rousing speech on the urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the good of the oceans, his first announcement was that the United States was joining the Ocean Acidification Alliance. Kerry emphasized that the 1.5-degree Celsius target was slipping from our grasp with every incremental increase over that target costing humanity trillions of dollars. Also, he highlighted the ongoing impacts of ocean acidification (OA), hypoxia, and marine heat waves on kelp forests, coral reefs, and more: an ecologically and financially devastating way to treat the source of over half the oxygen we breathe and the moderating buffer to some of climate change’s most devastating impacts.
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By Mark Gold, D.Env.
Sunday night, the Oceano Azul Foundation hosted the 2022 United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference kickoff at the Lisbon Oceanarium. The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, delivered a powerful speech making it clear that war and refugee crises can’t be used as an excuse for inaction on climate and ocean conservation. President Rebelo de Sousa also praised the environmental non–governmental organization (NGO) community for their tireless pursuit of ocean conservation, children for their bold and clear voices on climate and the oceans, and Portugal for their Marine Protected Area program. To have the leader of the host nation kick off the week in such a bold and candid manner should set the tone for the week.
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By Mark Gold, D.Env.
Yesterday, the OPC hosted its first in-person meeting in more than two years. Like all state agencies, we are trying to figure out the new normal with hybrid meetings – good online participation, but a public justifiably reluctant to return to large in-person meetings. Despite the low turnout yesterday in Sacramento, it was reassuring to see OPC Councilmembers and staff complete the essential work of the Council in the extraordinary, new CNRA auditorium.
One of the reasons I was excited to be appointed by Governor Newsom as Executive Director of the OPC three years ago was the Council’s long-term focus on impact science: applied research that provides results that can enhance state marine resource decision making. Science that makes a difference. The June 14th meeting was a great example of the OPC’s focus on impact science. … read more
The OPC and other California state agency partners have made significant investments in marine and coastal data collection, including seafloor maps, shoreline maps, and ecological and socio‐economic data to support marine protected area planning. Improved access and sharing of this geospatial data can ensure that the best and most up to date information and science is available for informing regulatory decisions, as well as the planning, scoping, and stakeholder processes that lead up to these decisions. The following are a list of current OPC efforts to improve coastal and marine geospatial data:
The California Coastal and Marine Geospatial Working Group
The OPC formed the California Coastal and Marine Geospatial Working Group (CCMG-WG) to increase collaboration between agencies and the state’s Geospatial Information Officer (GIO). The CCMG-WG has since become a formal subcommittee of the California GIS Council. Membership in the CCMG-WG includes technical managers and users of coastal and marine geospatial data from the various California state agencies (see list of members).
California Coastal and Marine Geospatial Data Information Management System Scoping Study
The OPC and the CCMG-WG developed a scope of work and issued an RFQ in early 2011 to conduct a scoping study with the goal of outlining the coastal and marine geospatial data priorities of California agencies and the specific technical requirements for data management systems at the State that are needed to support these priorities. See the Project Website for more information.
PRIOR GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION PROJECTS
- The Collaborative Geospatial Information and Tools for California Coastal and Ocean Managers Workshop (August 2009). Download the workshop report HERE.
- OPC Resolution on Coordination Geospatial Information and Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (2009). Download resolution HERE.
RELATED COASTAL AND MARINE SPATIAL PLANNING DOCUMENTS
In April 2011, the OPC hired Kearns & West/UC Santa Barbara to conduct a scoping study on information management systems for California coastal and marine geospatial data. The final scoping study was completed in October 2011. Below is more information on the study.
Scoping Study Goal:
To outline the coastal and marine geospatial data priorities of California agencies and to outline the specific technical requirements for data management systems at the State that are needed to support these priorities.
This project originated from comments about challenges to interagency data sharing in the state and is designed to be the first major step in addressing this challenge.
Scoping Study Objectives:
- Consult with the state agency users of coastal and marine geospatial data to document the functional requirements of the users;
- Learn from existing information management systems to assess approaches for interoperability. The existing systems and tools have advantages and disadvantages that can serve to inform the type of information system that California develops; and
- Provide a summary of considerations for long term operational sustainability of the system.
Key Findings and Recommendations:
The primary focus of this effort was on state agencies’ needs. Key findings from the scoping study consultations include:
- All agencies report the need for a commonly accessible coastal and marine Information Management System (IMS) through which to access geospatial information and no existing California-based web atlas or geospatial information management system evaluated during this study addresses the complete set of features and requirements identified;
- The dominant use of geospatial information is by non-technical users using web mapping applications and Google Earth. Web services and “out of the box” software solutions can provide essential functionality for visualizing and more easily sharing data across organizations and agencies as well as inter-operate with other IMSs and databases;
- Previous experiences with distributed and centralized IMS architectures have shown strengths and weaknesses for each approach, depending upon data holder capabilities, and a hybrid approach could capitalize upon the strengths of both architectures; and
- Long-term staff support and funding are required to support an effective IMS. A Data Librarian and Data Diplomats could greatly enhance state inter-agency data sharing and maintenance of a coastal and marine IMS.
The resulting recommendations that emerged from these findings include:
- A California coastal and marine geospatial IMS should be searchable and viewable through a dedicated web atlas, with the ability to view, overlay, print, and/or download geospatial data in several formats, including through GIS web services within ArcGIS Desktop;
- The architecture of the IMS should be organized with a hybrid approach, supporting both centralized and distributed data sources;
- The IMS should have staff support through a data librarian and data diplomats; and
- The IMS should be housed and funded in such a manner so as to enable it to be a long-term resource for California agencies.
The Ocean Protection Council, in collaboration with NOAA and the Ocean Science Trust, hosted a webinar series and workshop in March of 2011 on the Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS), a national effort to create a marine ecological classification scheme developed through a partnership between NOAA and NatureServe. CMECS provides a structure for developing and synthesizing data so that ecological units can be identified, characterized, and mapped in a standard way and at a variety of scales. The OPC is evaluating the potential of CMECS to address coastal and marine management needs in California.
The four webinars provided details about the individual components of CMECS. Following the webinar series, a one-day workshop was held in Oakland on March 30, 2011. The workshop discussion focused on evaluating the application of the CMECS framework in the context of California’s priority management needs and identifying essential criteria for a potential pilot project. The OPC intends to use the workshop to foster discussion on the best approach to integrate physical, biological, and chemical information to determine marine habitat type and understand the ecosystem processes that affect them.
In 1998, California passed the Marine Life Management Act (MLMA), which calls for an ecosystem approach to achieving sustainable fisheries and identifies the acquisition of essential fishery information (EFI) as a critical component in management decisions. EFI includes, among other things, fish population status and trends, impacts of fishing, ecological relationships, habitat information, and other environmental information. In 1999, the State went further, passing the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA), which mandated a redesign of the state’s system of MPAs “to increase its coherence and its effectiveness at protecting the state’s marine life, habitat, and ecosystems.”
The Channel Islands MPAs became the first of the new MPA networks to be implemented. Established in 2003, the network includes eleven State Marine Reserves (SMRs) where no take of living, geological or cultural resources is allowed and two State Marine Conservation Areas (SMCAs) where limited commercial and/or recreational take is allowed.
Working together, the California Department of Fish and Game and Marine Applied Research and Exploration (MARE) developed an ROV program designed to collect data in the deepwater (20 to 100 meter) habitats in the newly established Channel Islands MPAs—habitats beyond the reach of most SCUBA divers. The overarching goal of the program was to provide fishery-independent data required by the MLMA and MLPA—data to provide information on relative abundance, species interactions and associations, habitat preference, fishing effects on habitat, distribution, size composition of stocks, and human interactions with the marine environment. When tracked over time, this kind of information may provide managers with an indication of whether stocks are increasing or decreasing, and whether current management measures are achieving their intended conservation objectives. These data are also are needed to improve understanding of marine ecosystems and to enable adaptive management.
Key Findings and Successes A full report on the ROV program results to date is contained in “ROV-based Deep Water Monitoring of the Northern Channel Islands Marine Protected Areas Annual Report – 2009,” Marine Region Administrative Report No. 10-02, which will be posted on the California Department of Fish and Game web page: http://www.dfg.ca.gov.
The ROV data show that fish densities inside the MPAs have been consistently higher than densities in sites with similar habitats outside the MPAs. These differences were also detected by SCUBA based surveys in the shallow water areas adjacent to ROV study sites. While the causes for these differences are unknown, the fact that two independent methods showed similar results validates the use of ROV-based surveys for fishery-independent data collection.
The data have shown only slight changes in density within the MPAs since 2005. Given that most species of rockfish need very specific ocean conditions for successful reproduction, population changes are not expected to occur at a steady pace, but rather as large recruitment events that occur every five to ten years. Accordingly, it is not surprising that we have not yet seen large changes in MPA fish populations. In 2009, however, the team observed huge clouds of young of the year rockfish. Scientists working with MARE do not yet know if this is a huge recruitment class, or simply that the research cruise was conducted a month earlier than normal.
The time series data collected over the last five years has provided a cost effective baseline assessment of finfish and invertebrate abundance inside the MPAs and in unprotected comparison areas. Further, no animals were harmed by this video sampling.
Detailed analysis of data collected during this baseline sampling period is ongoing. The wealth of information contained within the archival video record collected will provide marine scientists the opportunity to expand our understanding of these highly productive marine ecosystems.
Underwater video clips of species in the Channel Islands MPAs
Council Documents
Research and Monitoring
Solving complex ocean resource problems will require a better scientific understanding of the underlying functioning of ocean and coastal ecosystems. The Ocean Protection Council seeks to establish policies that coordinate the collection and sharing of scientific data related to coast and ocean resources between agencies. The issues facing the ocean are multifaceted and partnerships are necessary to address these concerns. Under this strategic goal, OPC aims to improve the scientific understanding of our ocean resources and monitor the ocean environment to provide data about conditions and trends. By 2011, OPC would like for the state to have sufficient scientific understanding of biological, physical, and socio-economic processes in order to implement ecosystem based management statewide. OPC would also like to have consistent monitoring data accessible to resource managers and the public by 2011.
Objectives of Research and Monitoring Section of the 2006 – 2011 OPC strategic plan:
Objective 1: Research
Science should be the foundation of ocean and coastal policy, but often it is not. Sometimes this is because research and monitoring activities are under-funded and other times it is because results are not communicated effectively to decision makers and the public. To begin to remedy these gaps in knowledge or application, the OPC works with the Ocean Science Trust, the OPC Science Advisory Team, the two California-based Sea Grant programs, and many other partners to identify high priority research needs. The OPC includes research as a part of its funding strategy and seeks federal support for the state’s research needs. Another OPC research effort is to make California’s ocean observing system a national model.
Objective 2: Monitoring
Changes in ocean and coastal ecosystems can only be measured if sufficient baseline information is available. Increased and improved monitoring through data acquisition and analysis will provide that critical knowledge. They also provide metrics to assess effectiveness of management measures. In order to achieve this goal, OPC recognizes the need to create state-sponsored ocean observing programs that will work with the federal Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), the Regional Associations (RAs) and other entities to build an integrated ocean observing system in California. OPC is also in a partnership to complete seafloor maps of state waters, which will provide information on marine habitats and substrates. These maps are critical to effective management of fisheries, design of marine protected areas, and other management efforts. The OPC is also partnering to complete topographic maps of the California coastal region to aid in better land-sea research, such as climate change or tsunami impacts. Also, OPC is supporting the development of a comprehensive monitoring program focused on developing and delivering cost effective and useful monitoring data essential for ensuring the long-term adaptive management of the new statewide system of marine protected areas (MPAs).
Initiatives and Funded Projects:
Fisheries
Monitoring and Assessment
Mapping
Ocean Science Trust
California Sea Grant Research Programs
