Abstract
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), in partnership with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), convened a multi-day marine spatial planning workshop in the U.S. territory of Guam on September 12th and 13th, 2024 (89 FR 73075). The workshop occurred in the days immediately following the inaugural meeting of the recently formed BOEM Guam Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force (hereafter, Guam Task Force). This technical memorandum summarizes the outputs of this workshop.
NCCOS and BOEM are working to build marine spatial planning capacity in the Pacific region to inform potential leasing and planning of offshore wind energy (OSW) in Guam. Additionally, marine spatial planning, especially for island communities like Guam and the Northern Marianas, holds great promise to assist coastal managers, indigenous groups, environmental organizations, and industry with planning for future development of the blue economy. The following goals guided the workshop:
- Learn more about NOAA’s marine spatial planning approaches and BOEM’s offshore wind planning process
- Inventory available spatial data for Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)
- Document the best available data and known data gaps
- Increase local capacity and resources for regional ocean spatial planning
- Further develop an engaged community to inform future marine planning efforts