Craig Swanson, with Bruce Kaplan of Mangi Environmental Group, presented a talk at the 25th Minerals Management Service Information Transfer Meeting held in New Orleans, Louisiana on 6-8 January. The presentation, entitled “North and Central Atlantic Information Resources: Data Search and Literature Synthesis Study”, summarized the work to date that the team has performed on this project.
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David Stuebe presented developments in data aggregation and management tools at the 89th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in Phoenix, Arizona, 11-15 January. The presentation focused on how UNIDATA, OGC and OOI can be used in connection with Web Services to create more flexible, powerful data exchange in the scientific and management community.
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Malcolm Spaulding and Craig Swanson participated in the Offshore Wind Energy Meeting held at Rutgers University on 2 February. The meeting was intended to generate a dialog between the wind energy community and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) program community. Malcolm presented talks covering Rhode Island offshore wind development and the capabilities of NERACOOS, the northeast regional association in IOOS.
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On 5-6 February Dr. Walter Nordhausen met with Deborah French McCay, Richard Sweetman, and Tim Giguere for an interim project meeting at ASA. ASA is providing the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) with a software tool and manual to quickly evaluate the tradeoffs of dispersant use and plan monitoring activities. The software tool predicts the likely water volume adversely affected by naturally- or chemically-dispersed oil and dissolved hydrocarbons, as well as the surface area impacted by floating oil.
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On 18 February Xiongping Zhang visited Shandong MSA in Qingdao, China. Shandong MSA is leading a government funded oil/chemical spill research project in which OILMAP and CHEMMAP are key components. Xiongping also met with representatives of the National Marine Data & Information Service of China and the Oil Spill Response Center of China MSA.
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Eoin Howlett and Mark Wholey attended the NERACOOS Board Meeting and Strategic Planning and Implementation (SPI) Team and Data Infrastructure Framework (DIF) Working Group, a series of meetings held 18-19 February in Portland, Maine. Eoin is a member of the SPI and DIF groups and Mark is member of the DIF group and newly assigned to the DIF Executive Committee.
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From 19-20 February Kelly Knee visited the Valdez, Alaska offices of the Alyeska Pipeline Company to provide training in the use of ATOM (Alyeska Tactical Oil Spill Model) for the operators in charge of oil spill emergency response.
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On 23 February Xiongping Zhang delivered a presentation to officers from Yanshan MSA and Jinshan MSA on oil spill modeling and its application for Hangzhou Bay, China. Xiongping simulated several real-time hypothetical spill cases in Hangzhou Bay by connecting to ASA’s real time Environmental Data Server (EDS). Members from Shanghai Joyplus Technology Company also attended the presentation to learn how EDS data can provide better model results.
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Craig Swanson and Christin Reynolds attended the Northeast Energy and Commerce Association (NECA) Annual Renewable Energy Conference on 5 March. The conference focus was “Reconciling Renewable Energy Momentum with New Challenges”. ASA was a sponsor and exhibitor at the conference, held in Westborough, Massachusetts.
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From 2-5 March Kelly Knee attended the NOAA Coastal Services Center’s Coastal GeoTools Conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This year’s theme, “Building the Digital Coast”, focused on initiatives to streamline data access and management and the tools and techniques to achieve this goal.
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On 11 March Daniel Mendelsohn presented at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
(NESEA) Offshore Wind Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Daniel’s discussion focused on Rhode Island’s goal-setting and evaluation process that led to a detailed examination of the state’s offshore wind potential as well as the development of an Ocean Special Area Management Plan.
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From 16-22 March Christin Reynolds attended the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. Christin presented the paper ”A Negotiated Approach to River Basin Management”.
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Daniel Mendelsohn was an invited panel member at the Offshore Wind Development Conference, 30 March-1 April, held in Washington, D.C. The panel discussion, “Identifying Opportunities for Offshore Wind Development”, focused on the offshore wind potential in various regions, including both ocean-based sites and the Great Lakes. Daniel shared his experience and introduced new concepts in wind siting analysis.
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Iara Giacomini, Eduardo Yassuda, and Ilvio Rocha, HS & E Manager for Millennium Inorganic Chemicals (MIC), took a well-deserved lunch break at Arembepe Beach after delivering a modeling study and project design for a new outfall configuration. MIC has made a committed investment in the new outfall system to assure the environmental quality of the beaches on the Brazilian Coast.
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Jennifer Cragan presented ASA’s System for Hazard Assessment of Released Chemicals (SHARC) at the Chemical and Biological Medical Treatments Symposia - Fifth World Congress on Chemical, Biological and Radiological Terrorism (CBMTS-Industry VI) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on 5-10 April.
Eoin Howlett, as a member of the Ocean Research and Resources Advisory Panel (ORRAP) Ocean Observing Sub Committee, met in Washington D.C on 18 February to meet with scientists from a number of federal agencies, and the Interagency Working Group on Ocean Observations (IWGOO).
Eoin Howlett represented the Mid Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (Marcoos) at the NOAA IOOS Program office for the annual meeting of the data management representatives from the IOOS regional associations (RAs). The 2 day technical workshop focused on implementation of data transport protocol and standards and allowed the RA’s to share their experiences and advice on the issues related to management of ocean observation and model data.
ASA South America moved to new offices in February. The new location is not far from the old offices, but affords the growing staff and visiting clients much needed office space. The new address is Rua Fidalga, 711, São Paulo, Brazil 05432-070.
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The potable water supply for more than 18 million people in Shanghai, China, is threatened by the region’s rapid growth of both population and industry. Shanghai’s population is estimated to grow to over 20 million by 2010 when the metropolis hosts the Shanghai World Expo. 
The Source Water Reservoir Water Quality Management Project, part of the Chinese government-funded High-Tech Research & Development 863 Program, will focus on technologies that can provide high quality drinking water from the Qingcaosha Reservoir. The project will investigate key pollutants and their sources, water quality, hydrodynamics, Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), possible pollution events, and eutrophication and harmful algae blooms in the reservoir and Yangtze estuary using the latest monitoring and modeling technology.
Sao Paulo’s government and other local authorities launched the “Programa Onda Limpa” (Clean Wave Program - CWP) to remedy water shortages and water quality problems along the Sao Paulo beaches as a result of seasonal surges in tourism combined with inadequate sewage network and water supplies. Presently, only about 43% of the region’s businesses and residences are connected to the sewer system. 
ASA South America’s role in this important sanitation project is to provide metocean (meteorological-oceanographic) forecast data bulletins for the construction consortium. The forecast bulletins are an important tool to define the work load and project schedule. “Our task is to analyze in-situ collected data and the results of oceanic and meteorological models with different scales on a daily basis. Based on our analysis, a bulletin with the metocean forecast for the next 5 days is released every night”, explains Gabriel Clauzet, Technical Manager for ASA South America. ASA has assigned an onsite professional working full time to provide immediate response and improved interaction between the project team, oceanographer Andre Paim. Andre Paim is working full time to provide a fast response and a better interaction between the project team. “We have a lot to thank ASA for the sharp forecasts, which assist us on management decisions to make the project run on schedule” says Production Manager for CNO-Carioca Engineering, responsible for the maritime operations.
Led by the Marine Institute of Ireland, a group of academic, government, and industry partners have collaborated in a marine technology project in Galway Bay. SmartBay is a regional network of technologies that produce and assemble marine and coastal data in Galway Bay. Tying together technologies such as sensors attached to anchored buoys in the bay, to weather gauges, to simple text messages from fisherman about their catch or boaters regarding potentially dangerous floating objects is intended to deliver benefits to aquaculture, tourism, climate research, fishing and the environment. The system is built on a cloud computing approach in which vast amounts of data can be divided among computers based at data centers around the globe. The data is then made available at a portal site for users in a range of easily interpreted formats, including graphs, lists, maps, and charts. 
IBM Ireland asked ASA and Nowcasting Weather Ltd. to assist in the portal by providing high resolution weather forecast data and web-based search & rescue tools. ASA embedded its SARMAP search & rescue technology in a web services architecture that allowed users at the portal site to specify locations of missing persons, or drifting objects at sea. By using automatic connection to weather forecast data, the predicted search areas are made available in a Google Maps interface within seconds.
There is growing recognition around the world that intensifying demands on our ocean ecosystems from commerce, industry, recreation, and climate change require a new approach to ocean resource management. The Massachusetts Ocean Partnership (MOP) is a broadly representative, independent public-private partnership created specifically to advance ecosystem-based integrated multi-use management of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ coastal ocean waters. The Partnership pursues this goal through implementation of stakeholder engagement, science integration and public outreach strategies.
As part of their mission, MOP is working closely with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) and Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (MassCZM) in support of a comprehensive ocean-use management plan that is based on the best available science, and that may serve as a model for other coastal states. MOP has awarded a contract to ASA to provide technology and data management support to MOP, EEA and MassCZM. ASA’s primary role has been in the conceptual design of an ocean data network. An ocean data network is an infrastructure of data, systems, services, and tools that allow a variety of users including the public, coastal managers, and research scientists to access “live” and archived data related to coastal and ocean management. This may include maps, observations, and model data. 
