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Necessary Tools
Achieving safe, effective, efficient, and secure marine operations that support environmental
protection requires a diverse suite of infrastructure and technology, ranging from
assessment methodologies (e.g., rapid-assessment methods for detecting marine contaminants/pollutants
and harmful, non-indigenous species) to observing systems and
information networks. Providing accurate and comprehensive environmental information
will require expanding observational networks to monitor, record, and present real-time,
surface-monitoring data (e.g., high-frequency, coastal-based radars). This expansion will
require advancing sensor and technology development, particularly for autonomous and
persistent observations, as well as for long-term observing systems; expanding real-time
or near-real-time data collection on environmental variables by incorporating observational
capabilities of ships of opportunity (e.g., fishing cargo, and passenger vessels); and
enhancing automated and autonomous bottom-mapping capabilities for change detection
to improve rapid, full-scale survey scheduling.
Data collected by the observing systems must be accessible through a comprehensive
national data network, either through a single system 22 or a distributed network. Developing
this data network will require new methodologies that address gaps in data collection,
sharing, and interoperability of technologies, and should permit integration of existing
research into operational systems (e.g., systems providing real-time navigation data to
vessels). This data network should be able to link with other databases, such as those
focusing on ecosystem data, and developed in accordance with international standards for
data exchange. The national data network will also provide the data needed for models
simulating multiple scenarios to better understand potential impacts weather events or
man-made disruptions on marine operations, and to support operations restoration plans.
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