NNMREC

November 5, 2010

Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center

Standards and Protocols for Environmental Assessment

Renewable Ocean Energy and the Marine Environment

Brian PolagyeUniversity of Washington

NNMREC

Virtual Center Organization

EnvironmentalAcoustics

Electromagnetic Fields

Benthic Ecosystems

Sediment Transport

SocialFisheries/Crabbing

Outreach/Engagement

Existing Ocean Users

Local/State Economy

Technical Testing/Demonstration

Site and Resource Characterization

Survivability/Reliability

Device/Array Optimization

NNMREC

Hydrokinetic Devices

Advancing Technology ReadinessTechnology

Testing

Economic Effectiveness

Environmental Impacts

Survivability

Reliability Maintenance intervals

Extreme environmental loads

Monitoring can have impacts

Aligning technical feasibility with cost

Emerging technical approaches

- and -

Environmental Assessment

NNMREC

Monitoring Platform Evaluation

Seabed InstrumentationMeasurement Tripod

Shipboard SurveyR/V Jack Robertson

Land ObservationAIS Ship Tracks

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Baseline Environmental Characterization

Physical Environment

AcousticsHydrodynamicsWater Quality

Grey Whale

Tracking

Sediment Sampling

Trawls

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Evaluating Environmental EffectsRecording

Hydrophone

CPod

Automatic Identification System

DopplerProfiler

Data Collection Data Synthesis and Analysis

Potential for

Behavioral Change

Environmental Uncertainty

Estimated Effect

Species Behavior

NNMREC

Components of Environmental Protocols Clearly defined objectives

― What hypothesis is being tested?

Data collection― Hardware selection and configuration― Sampling scheme

Data analysis and interpretation Development will be iterative

― Improve based on use― High degree of collaboration required

Aspects of protocols will be site and technology specific

NNMREC

Why Protocols Matter: Ambient Noise

All measurements

Measurements excluding sensor-induced pseudo-noise

Mean levels >5 dB lower

Maximum noise levels 10 dB lower

Different analysis leads to different conclusions

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Information Sharing

Lack of data sharing between projects often cited as a barrier to resolving environmental uncertainty

Volume of raw data can be staggering

Context of collection matters

Is this practical?

Distinguish between data and information

NNMREC

Thank You

More information available at:

Wave: http://nnmrec.orgeonstate.edu

Tidal: http://depts.washington.edu/nnmrec

This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Number DE-FG36-08GO18179.