Posters

Abstract

In emerging markets, offshore wind farms are still relatively new and their presence in marine and coastal environments will be unfamiliar to the public. Even in mature markets, such as a number in Europe, development faces scrutiny from fishing and coastal communities, as well as conservation groups. In both settings, it can be challenging for the public to fully understand the response of the ecosystem to offshore wind development. This uncertainty may lead to the spread of misinformation and resistance towards the industry. Interactive data visualization tools, specifically those tailored to allow users to explore location-specific data, can help address this issue. By enabling users to investigate the data independently, these tools promote transparency, support informed opinions, and help build trust across groups. To meet this need, our team developed a highly customized data visualization platform, a Popup map, which is curated based on the audience and objective of the tool. The Popup map combines high-resolution geophysical data with visual ground-truth data to provide information on seafloor physical and biological conditions. These data are integrated to provide delineations of benthic habitat types with full descriptors across the entire surveyed area.  Additionally, these delineated benthic habitat types are presented in the classification scheme of relevance, such as the European Nature Information System (EUNIS, Davies et al. 2004), the National Marine Habitat Classification for Britain and Ireland (JNCC 2022), in the U.S., the federal Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS, FGDC 2012). Additionally, the data can be cross walked to habitat categories related to protection objectives, such as those listed as threatened or declining under OSPAR Agreement 2008-07 or the Red List of Marine Habitats (European Commission 2016) under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (Habitat Directive, European Commission 1992).