NCCOS scientists traveled to Washington State May 13-17 to support marine planning along the outer Pacific coast. NCCOS is helping inventory and assess key seafloor, groundfish, seabird and marine mammal datasets essential to effective marine planning. They are developing a data viewer that will help the state, other coastal managers, and researchers visualize seafloor datasets, prioritize future mapping and identify data gaps.

The work in Washington follows on similar projects in Oregon, New York and Connecticut, where NCCOS supported critical state marine planning needs. During theweek-longtrip, they attended a workshop to identify ecosystem indicators useful in marine planning and met with Washington's Departments of Natural Resources and Ecology, the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, the Pacific Hydrographic Branch and NOAA Sea Grant.

For more information please contact: Charles Menza Charles.menza@noaa.gov or Tim.battista@noaa.gov.