Newsletter
July 2009
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TIn the United States marine spatial planning is being addressed at the national, regional and state levels. It is important to specify and implement a plan locally but also essential to coordinate the planning efforts globally. President Barack Obama has issued a memorandum (12 June 2009) to the heads of all executive departments and agencies to form an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force which will recommend a framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning. Prior to the recent national emphasis, the State of Massachusetts passed the Oceans Act of 2008. The Oceans Act requires Massachusetts to develop a first-in-the-nation comprehensive plan to manage development in its state waters, balancing natural resource preservation with traditional and new uses. Rhode Island has a similar program, the Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), which aims to provide for future renewable energy uses through research and planning processes that integrate the best available science with public involvement and input. As plans develop, the coordination across state or national boundaries needs to be considered.|
ASA was awarded a contract by the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD) for the development of a Coastal Resources Atlas and Environmental Vulnerability Index to support coastal management and planning in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD) is a leading agency in the Gulf region with a group of international and local scientists monitoring and researching many aspects of the coastal region. The Coastal Atlas project provides a web-based GIS system with data analysis tools for evaluating the current and future health of the coastal region.
The atlas includes habitat classifications, human and socio-economic resource classifications, and an environmental vulnerability index for all of Abu Dhabi’s coastal and marine environments. The system will provide access to these data for all levels of stakeholders, from GIS experts to resource managers and scientists, to the general public through desktop software applications and web browsers. More Information & Related Links: |
Abu Dhabi has identified the need to balance environmentally responsible management of coastal development projects with its exciting 2030 development activities. “Abu Dhabi 2030” is a long-term plan for the transformation of the Emirate’s economy, with a focus on significant infrastructure development and a growth in knowledge-based industries. Abu Dhabi 2030 is also complemented by other long term plans such as Economic 2030 and Environment 2030. 
ASA’s partners on the project include Research Planning Inc., Five Oceans, and Hydroqual Inc. The project provides advanced habitat classification using a scheme developed by EAD that allows coastal managers to evaluate possible stresses on the environment caused by coastal developments, climate change, or incidents such as marine pollution.|
The data network design has focused on: More Information & Related Links: |
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. ASA is providing technology and data management support to MOP, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (MassCZM) in support of a comprehensive ocean-use management plan. In addition to data integration and analysis in support of the plan, ASA has developed a conceptual design of an ocean data network that integrates the latest GIS tools with ocean sciences and Web 2.0 technologies.
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ASA teamed with Mangi Environmental Group and several other firms and academic and research institutions to work on two separate projects for the Minerals Management Service (MMS) Office of Alternative Energy Programs. These projects include building reference databases and synthesizing oceanographic resources for each of the east and west coast Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) offshore areas of the continental United States. The final products will supply MMS with the necessary information to evaluate the environmental impacts of alternative energy development on the OCS. More Information & Related Links: |
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More Information & Related Links: |
ASA was contracted by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management to produce visualizations of storm surge flooding and sea level rise for critical facilities throughout the town of Hull, MA . Three-dimensional models of the facilities were produced by ESS Group, Inc. using Google’s SketchUp software and imported to Google Earth. Representations of the various flood stages were calculated using high resolution LIDAR data and overlaid on the 3D models in Google Earth. A tour of the town’s facilities was then created, allowing users to tour the flooding extents for the 100-year flood today, and with 0.3, 0.5, 1, and 3 meters of sea level rise. The purpose of this project is to educate town officials and the public about the potential impacts of storm events under higher sea levels.|
ASA is on a team of companies lead by ERG that was recently awarded a contract with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide technical support services to its office of Oceans and Coastal Protection Division (OCPD). OCPD is one of three divisions within the EPA Office of Wetlands, Ocean, and Watersheds and it operates under major environmental legislation, such as the Clean Water Act, and under international treaties such as MARPOL. OCPD has the responsibility to manage and oversee programs intended to protect the oceans, estuaries and coastal waters of the U.S.
ASA will offer support for projects related to: |
- Analysis of physical, chemical and biological processes in aquatic environments |
ASA has been added to the Dewberry and Davis team that holds a contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center (CSC). The Coastal Geospatial Services Contract (CGSC) is an Architectural and Engineering Contract vehicle to provide geospatial services. As well as a support contract for NOAA, this contract is also available to other federal, state, and local agencies through Memorandums of Understanding and offers a variety of geospatial services including:
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- Geographic information systems (GIS) data development
Pamela Luey presented a paper entitled “Verification of Polyethylene and Solid Phase Micro-extraction Passive Sampling Devices in Hyper-saline, Arctic Conditions” at the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Europe 2009 conference held in Göteborg, Sweden from 31 May - 4 June. Christin Reynolds and Melanie Schroeder attended the "Northeast Regional Workshop on Marine Spatial Planning" from 8-9 June in Warwick, Rhode Island. The workshop, hosted by The Nature Conservancy, Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), addressed regional data availability and overall goals of marine spatial planning. 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.
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Lauren Decker joined ASA as a physical oceanographer. She has experience in fjord and coastal dynamics, as well as programmingand building graphical user interface tools for data analysis. Lauren earned her Master’s in Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, and her Bachelor’s from the University of Washington. |
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Kyle Wilcox has joined ASA as a programmer. His experience includes software developed for NOAA for the collection, analysis, and display of environmental data in the Chesapeake Bay. At ASA, Kyle will lead development of a Flex Mapping Framework for rich web clients. |
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Pamela Luey has joined ASA as a chemist with broad background in marine science and environmental chemistry. She is also experienced in field data collection and analysis. Her primary concentration is in the assessment of anthropogenic effects to the water column and benthos with specific focus on organic contaminants. |
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Tatyana Yanishevsky, with a background in software testing, has joined ASA working as a quality analyst, both testing software and maintaining a new quality assurance management application. Her experience includes marine field work in Alaska, collecting data used by NOAA to manage Alaska’s commercial fisheries. |
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Matthew Zed has joined Asia-Pacific ASA as a coastal engineer with expertise in environmental modeling, fundamental fluid mechanics, and coastal processes. Matthew’s experience with several numerical wave and hydrodynamic models is complimented by his proficiency in Matlab programming. After graduating with first class honors in Environmental Engineering and Commerce at the University of Western Australia in 2007, Matthew worked there as a research associate studying the numerical modeling of tropical cyclones on the north-west shelf of Australia. |
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ASA will be hosting free pre-conference workshops, "Environmental Information and Trajectory Prediction in Oil Spill Response," at the both the 2009 Clean Pacific and Clean Gulf conferences. Dr. CJ Beegle-Krause will present a variety of spill case histories and the science that governs how spills behave. She will discuss types of spill observations and demonstrate different types of trajectory modeling. Students will learn the basics of assembling a spill timeline from the past into the future using field information and predictions, and how to integrate results with GIS applications such as ArcView® and Google Earth. On 15-16 September Eoin Howlett, Deborah French McCay and Xiongping Zhang will attend the Shanghai International Maritime Forum 2009 (SIMF) in Shanghai, China. At the forum, ASA will be an exhibitor and Deb will lead an oil and chemical spill damage assessment workshop. On 17 September ASA, together with the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Science (SAES), will host a workshop at SAES headquarters in Shanghai. The workshop will focus on methods and tools for oil spill simulations, spill impact assessment and emergency response. Contact Dr. Weiqing Lin at SAES or Dr. Xiongping Zhang at ASA for a detailed workshop description and updated information. |
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ASA celebrated its 30th anniversary on 5 June with an open house event recognizing thirty years of continued growth at their company headquarters in Rhode Island. Guests included clients, partners, industry affiliates, and public officials. Awards were presented by state officials including Senator Jack Reed, Governor Donald Carcieri, and Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts.  |