An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico (2013) / Chapter Skim
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6 Research Needs in Support of Understanding Ecosystem Services in the Gulf of Mexico
6 Research Needs in Support of Understanding Ecosystem Services in the Gulf of Mexico
Pages 167-192
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From page 167... ...
Previous chapters have outlined many of the challenges to application of an ecosystem services approach to understand the impact of an event such as the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill on the GoM ecosystem.
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From page 168... ...
The amount of civil penalties that may be recovered, as well as the timing of recovery, is currently unknown, but it is very likely that the amount will involve billions of dollars. Thirty percent of the RESTORE Act funds will be managed by the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, an entity that replaced the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force through an Executive Order dated September 10, 2012.2 The Council is charged with developing a comprehensive plan for ecosystem restoration in the Gulf Coast (Comprehensive Plan)
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From page 169... ...
In May 2010, BP Production and Exploration committed $500 million over a 10-year period to create a broad, independent research program to be conducted at research institutions primarily in the Gulf Coast states.3 BP initially granted year-one block grants in June 2010 to Gulf 3 http://research.gulfresearchinitiative.org/.
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From page 170... ...
Department of Justice and Transocean Deepwater Inc. was reached on February 14, 2013, regarding Transocean's violation of the CWA via the DWH oil spill.7 Included in these two settlements were awards of nearly $2.5 billion dollars to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to remedy harm and eliminate or reduce the risk of future harm to Gulf Coast natural resources and $500 million dollars to the National Academy of Sciences for a program focused on human health and environmental protection, including issues relating to offshore drilling and hydrocarbon production and transportation in the GoM and on the Outer Continental Shelf.
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From page 171... ...
Research Activities The early recognition of the DWH oil spill as an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportion led to a rapid response by researchers from many sectors. As outlined in the Interim Report (NRC, 2011)
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From page 172... ...
Some have proven more effective than others, and all need to be examined and applied in the context of prevailing environmental, habitat, and oiling conditions. Chapter 4 of this report provides a detailed examination of the response technologies used for the DWH oil spill and their relative effectiveness.
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From page 173... ...
The technologies used to respond to the DWH oil spill and the data from the associated impacts derived from continued research should assist in the creation of these diagrams. An interactive, layered-mapping Web application called ‘SPECIESMAP' has been designed to help fill knowledge gaps regarding potential DWH oil spill impacts to fish species such as relocation of spawning grounds, bioaccumulation of hydrocarbons, altered migration routes, expanding hypoxic dead zones, affected life-history stages, reduced populations, and extinctions (Chakrabarty et al., 2012)
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From page 174... ...
. 6-2 R02473 edge gap -- because there were fears that some of the oil from the DWH oil spill would pass bitmapped, uneditable through the Straits of Florida and contaminate the Atlantic.
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From page 175... ...
Finding 6.3. The response technologies applied during the DWH oil spill resulted in both beneficial and detrimental effects on ecosystems and the services they provide to humans.
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From page 176... ...
, and many other programs in the GoM. There have been improvements in data quality assurance/ quality control, methods to relay data to designated national data repository systems, Federal Geographic Data Committee metadata requirements, Data Management and Control methods to submit oceanographic data to the Integrated Ocean Observing System and the numerous regional associations, such as the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System Regional Association (GCOOS-RA)
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From page 177... ...
As noted earlier, these data collections continue, but many of the results are being held in confidence until litigation is complete. The NRDA of DWH oil spill extends beyond previous deep habitat descriptions of the GoM (e.g., benthic faunal inventory and biodiversity)
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From page 178... ...
Additionally, fundamental oceanographic and meteorological data are provided by moorings of the National Data Buoy Center19 and the ADCP current meter measurements from offshore oil and gas platforms. In summary, many groups in the GoM are building on existing data sets, ocean observing capabilities, and continuing basic observational data.
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From page 179... ...
There have been several R02473 after the oil spill, including the NOAA efforts to compile background information during and Deepwater Horizon Archive,20 thebitmapped, Group for Surface and Sub-Surface Oceanog Joint Analysis uneditable raphy, Oil and Dispersant Data,21 and Naval Oceanographic Office Special Support-GOMEX Mississippi Canyon 252 Oil Spill.22 There is, however, no integrative superstructure or roadmap to available data, the development of which will be even more essential as new data arrive from current and future research activities. Despite the tremendous amount of funding that will be available to GoM researchers, there will likely never be enough to support all of the potentially important assessment and 20 http://www.noaa.gov/deepwaterhorizon/.
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From page 180... ...
Thus although past, current, and future data collection and monitoring efforts will likely provide much of the needed baseline data from which the impact of future events such as the DWH oil spill on ecosystem function and structure could be discerned, the need for an overarching structure to integrate the wealth of data that has been, is being, and will continue to be collected in the GoM is viewed by this committee as a critical research need. Finding 6.5.
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From page 181... ...
was complete at the time of the DWH oil spill, and the four Gulf of Mexico Sea Grant Programs reexamined the plan immediately after the spill.23 In addition to the GoMRI initiatives, over the next 2 years, the GoM Regional Sea Grant Consortium, the EPA Gulf of Mexico Program, and NOAA are sponsoring $1.3 million in research aimed at improving approaches for valuing the GoM ecosystem services. In particular, the research will focus on the services provided by marshes, mangroves, and oyster reefs.
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From page 182... ...
The committee found many of these priorities to be consistent with those we have identified for advancing our understanding of ecosystem services in the GoM and that would be useful for enhancing community and ecosystem resilience in preparation for future environmental challenges, whether they are episodic (i.e., oil spills or hurricanes) or chronic (i.e., sea level rise and wetland loss)
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From page 183... ...
. Determine and predict the physical impacts of climate change on coastal and upland areas in terms of factors such as sea level change, rate of elevation change, shoreline change, loss of barrier islands, and change in regional hydrology and apply this knowledge in habitat restoration efforts.
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From page 184... ...
Research Needs Specific to Ecosystem Services and Their Valuation As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, the fundamental challenges to application of an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment in the GoM are related to understanding of baseline levels in a shifting or dynamic regime, the lack of comprehensive mechanistic models of GoM ecosystem processes, the uncertainty of and limited data associated with characterizing the human benefits that flow from ecosystem services, and finally, relating ecosystem services to long-term resilience. Given the substantial ongoing data collection efforts undertaken in response to the DWH oil spill, along with the planned research and monitoring efforts, the baseline data needed to determine the impact on ecosystem function and structure of a future event such as the DWH oil spill will likely be available.
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From page 185... ...
The models presented in Chapter 2 (Ecopath with Ecosim, Atlantis, Marine InVEST, MIMES, ARIES) , however, allow for evaluation of the impact of an event such as the DWH oil spill on components of the ecosystem and the extrapolation of those impacts to a subset of ecosystem services.
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From page 186... ...
. EwE could be used to identify the components of the model ecosystem most likely to be affected by the DWH oil spill.
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From page 187... ...
would include length of period that the fishery was closed, estimated loss of catch, value of catch, alternative revenue streams, public perception of seafood safety and economic losses from buyer concern, unemployment costs, and loss of licenses that would link the fishery catch reduction and economic hardship to the various groups in society that depend on that fishery. Tracking these variables offers a rather straightforward approach to monitoring the recovery of a community from an event such as the DWH oil spill if the goal is simply to return the community to its pre-spill state (the concept of engineering resilience discussed in Chapter 3)
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From page 188... ...
metric. One of the challenges to applying an ecosystem services approach 188
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From page 189... ...
Consideration of the impact on human well-being of the DWH oil spill is of great importance, but the ability to analyze these impacts is still partial and incomplete. Consistent frameworks exist for inclusion of these impacts on human well-being (e.g., NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science "Human Dimensions Strategic Plan" or the Marine InVEST models)
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From page 190... ...
The risk of additional deep-sea reservoir oil spills in the GoM increases as the oil and gas industry moves more and more into deeper waters. Consequently, stakeholders should consider how the nation should prepare for an environmental event of the magnitude of the DWH oil spill.
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From page 191... ...
Just as better mechanisms for assessing and assigning responsibility for damages resulted from the Exxon Valdez grounding, the opportunity exists now to incorporate the concepts of ecosystem services, in practice and in law, into oil spill damage assessment and recovery strategies. The evolving understanding of human-ecosystem interactions as articulated by ecosystem-based management, and particularly the concept of ecosystem services, offer an opportunity to address some of the challenges faced during the current NRDA process.
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