PC-23-03B: Facilitating Resilience and Adaptation in Commercial Fisheries in Response to Offshore Renewable Energy Development and Climate Change

Description

The purpose of this study is to understand and predict how potential impacts from offshore energy development and climate change may interact to affect commercial fisheries, and to develop mitigation strategies that increase either the adaptive capacity or the resilience of affected stakeholders to foreseeable changes.The States of California, Oregon, and Washington, Tribal governments, local government agencies, and the public will be the primary beneficiaries of this federal assistance agreement. Scientists and managers recognize that shifting climate regimes are affecting and will continue to affect marine ecosystems and the fisheries and communities that depend on them. To respond appropriately to these changing conditions, many agencies on the West Coast have developed policies that outline strategies to adapt to and increase resilience of coastal communities to these changes. These policies are general in nature and lack specific recommendations to assist stakeholders in anticipating and mitigating negative consequences. Furthermore, very little guidance exists to manage multiple stressors, where potential climate change impacts may interact with other external factors. Thus, State, Tribal, and local governments that have climate change strategies in place will considerably benefit from the products generated by this study because place-specific, actionable alternatives will be developed for managers to consider. State and local agencies will also considerably enhance their ability to evaluate future energy projects in their own waters and as part of Coastal Zone Management Act consistency certifications. The ultimate outcome will be an increased capacity to manage their trust resources wisely. Finally, members of the public that have broad interests in understanding potential consequences of climate change will also benefit.The work under this Agreement complies with Executive Order 13990 “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis” (January 25, 2021) which establishes a policy that highlights the need to use science to bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change, and Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” (January 27, 2021), which establishes a policy that includes a government-wide approach to increase resilience to the impacts of climate change and to deploy clean energy technologies and infrastructure.This Award implements the OCS Lands Act mandate to conduct environmental studies to predict impacts on the human, marine, and coastal environments from OCS resource activities (43 U.S.C. § 1346 (b)).

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