Geology topics

Stephanie M. Sharuga

Publications and source records attributed to Stephanie M. Sharuga.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2023

Structured decision making to prioritize regional bird monitoring needs

Conservation planning for large ecosystems has multiple benefits but is often challenging to implement because of the multiple jurisdictions, species, and habitats involved. In addition, decision making at large spatial scales can be hampered because many approaches do not explicitly incorporate potentially competing values and concerns of stakeholders. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, establishing baselines was challenging because of (1) variation in study designs, (2) inconsistent use of explicit objectives and hypotheses, (3) inconsistent use of standardized monitoring protocols, and (4) variation in spatial and temporal scope associated with avian monitoring projects before the spill. Herein, we show how the Gulf of Mexico Avian Monitoring Network members used structured decision making to identify bird monitoring priorities. We used multiple tools and techniques to clearly define the problem and stakeholder objectives and to identify bird monitoring priorities at the scale of the entire northern Gulf of Mexico region. Although our example is specific to the northern Gulf of Mexico, this approach provides an example of how stakeholder values can be incorporated into the coordination process of broad-scale monitoring programs to address management, restoration, and scientific questions in other ecosystems and for other taxa.

INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics↗

USGS2023

Comprehensive inventory of habitat assessment and evaluation datasets to support Deepwater Horizon mesophotic and deep benthic communities

This report is part of the NOAA Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities (MDBC) Series of publications that share the results of work conducted by the Deepwater Horizon MDBC restoration projects. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an unprecedented event. Approximately 3.2 million barrels of oil were released into the deep ocean over nearly three months. The plume of oil moved throughout the water column, formed surface slicks that cumulatively covered an area the size of Virginia, and washed oil onto at least 1,300 miles of shoreline habitats. More than 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of deep benthic habitat surrounding the Deepwater Horizon wellhead and 4-square miles of the Pinnacles mesophotic reef complex, located at the edge of the continental shelf, were injured by the oil spill. Under the Oil Pollution Act, state and federal natural resource trustees conducted a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). The Trustees assessed damages, quantifying the unprecedented injuries to natural resources and lost services. They also developed a programmatic restoration plan to restore injured resources and compensate the public for lost services. In April 2016, a settlement was finalized that included up to $8.8 billion in funding for the Deepwater Horizon Trustees to restore the natural resource injuries caused by the oil spill as described in their programmatic restoration plan, Final Programmatic Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. The Deepwater Horizon Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group is responsible for restoring natural resources and their services within the Open Ocean Restoration Area that were injured by the oil spill. The Open Ocean Trustees include NOAA, Department of the Interior, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2019, the Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group committed more than $126 million to implement four restoration projects to address the injury to MDBC. The MDBC projects are: mapping, Ground-truthing, and Predictive Habitat Modeling; Habitat Assessment and Evaluation; Coral Propagation Technique Development; and Active Management and Protection. NOAA and the Department of the Interior are implementing the projects, in cooperation with a range of partners, over eight years. Together, the projects take a phased approach to meet the challenges involved in restoring deep-sea habitats. Challenges to restoration include a limited scientific understanding of these communities, limited experience with restoration at the depths at which these communities occur, and remote locations that limit accessibility. More information about Deepwater Horizon restoration and the MDBC restoration projects is available at: www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov.

Gulf of Mexico↗

USGS2022

Workshops report for mesophotic and deep benthic community fish, mobile invertebrates, sessile invertebrates and infauna

Two workshops with subject matter experts in the appropriate fields, were held in November and December 2021 to elicit guidance and feedback from the broader mesophotic and deep benthic scientific community. These workshops focused on best practices/approaches and identifying data gaps relative to habitat assessment and evaluation goals of the Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Community (MDBC) restoration portfolio. The first workshop was a combined effort of the Habitat Assessment and Evaluation (HAE) Project Team and the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) Program. Industrial Economics, Inc. (IEc) provided extensive workshop planning, organizing, execution, and facilitation support during all stages of the workshop. Based on a questionnaire sent to scientists in August, 2021, the workshop focused on fish and mobile invertebrate habitat associations, abundance trends, community metrics, and food web functionality. Topical presentations and discussions focused not only on demersal fish and mobile invertebrates that are directly associated with mesophotic and deep benthic habitats, but also considered water column species and communities that benefit from these habitats more broadly. The second workshop, intended to complement the first workshop, focused on identifying best practices and critical information gaps for key community metrics, larval dispersal modeling, connectivity, effects and variability of environmental parameters, and recovery trajectories of corals, infauna, and other sessile invertebrates. Through literature review, internal HAE scientists considered these topics to be critical for restoration success. Products from the literature review included topical summaries (see Appendix B) that summarized the current state-of-the-science and provided the framework for the workshop. Information generated from the workshops will assist the MDBC HAE Project, and more broadly the DWH Program, identify data gaps and develop a suite of best practices for restoration activities.

DWH MDBC Summary Report↗