Abstract
The U.S. Department of Energy hosted a two-day workshop on July 24-25, 2012 with scientists and regulators engaged in marine ecological survey, modeling, and database efforts pertaining to the waters of the Mid-Atlantic region to inform the siting of offshore wind. The workshop was planned by Federal agency, academic, and private partners to promote collaboration between ongoing offshore ecological survey efforts, and to promote the collaborative development of complementary predictive models and compatible databases. The meeting primarily focused on efforts to establish and predict marine mammal, seabird, and sea turtle abundance, density, and distributions extending from the shoreline to the edge of the Exclusive Economic Zone between Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
The first day of the workshop featured an overview of current and recent survey efforts and existing species data, followed by a structured discussion on the potential for coordination of data collection and analyses. The second day was comprised of two additional sessions, one focused on current data storage and distribution systems, data accessibility, and potential avenues for data sharing, and the other on statistical modeling efforts.