Ongoing Environmental Research

NYSERDA’s Offshore Wind program works collaboratively with stakeholders, including members of the Environmental and Fisheries Technical Working Groups (TWGs), to assess the applicability of existing research and identify knowledge gaps. Through competitive funding opportunities, NYSERDA partners with experts in the field to conduct critical research related to the marine environment and fisheries to inform the responsible and cost-effective development of offshore wind energy.

Research Focus	Title	Contractor	Description
Fishing	Creation of a “Data Trust” to Include Fisherman's Knowledge in Offshore Wind Energy Decision Making	Responsible Offshore Development Alliance	This project will develop a standardized and industry-owned data platform that allows fishermen to own, use, and market their data while retaining control over who has access to it, and allow crowdsourcing of data as evidence to support consensus and inform offshore wind energy development. Read the report.
Environment	Multi-scale Relationships Between Marine Predators and Forage Fish	Biodiversity Research Institute	This project is designed to better understand the linkages between forage fish and marine predators and to demonstrate implications for offshore wind development, including how seabird abundance and movement behavior may influence interactions with turbines.
Environment	Ecosystem Dynamics: An Examination of the Relationships between Environmental Processes, Primary Productivity, and Distribution of Species at Higher Trophic Levels	Ecology and Environment, Inc.	This project will integrate available ecosystem and observational data for key oceanographic features and ecological processes and pave the way for comparative assessments of the power of available ecosystem data to predict wildlife distribution and movement.
Fishing	Collaborative Development of Strategies and Tools to Address Commercial Fishing	National Renewable Energy Laboratory	This project brings together a multi-disciplinary team of offshore wind researchers, fisheries experts, developers, and regulators to address the need to understand and develop solutions for safe and efficient fishing access to offshore wind farms and develop technical strategies and tools to minimize the disruption of commercial fishing, while also ensuring economical energy generation and safe operation.
Fishing	Creation of a “Data Trust” for Effective Inclusion of Fishermen’s Knowledge in Offshore Wind Energy Decision Making	Responsible Offshore Development Alliance	This project will develop a standardized and industry-owned data platform that allows fishermen to own, use, and market their data while retaining control over who has access to it, and allow crowdsourcing of data as evidence to support consensus and inform offshore wind energy development.
Environment	Development of Monitoring Protocols for Nanotag Studies at Offshore Wind Farms	US Fish and Wildlife Service	This project will develop standardized guidelines to inform the use of miniature digitally-coded VHF transmitters (‘nanotags’) to monitor birds and bats in relation to offshore wind energy development.

Ocean Environment

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