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These data represent marine waters used for permanent research areas, which includes sites, transects, and monitoring areas where routine research or monitoring is conducted. Excludes motorized boating and commercial shipping.
Permanent research sites are common all along the coast throughout the study area. This includes research sites that focus on mammal and seabird counts, erosion monitoring, sediment accretion, harmful algal blooms, shellfish populations, and dead bird surveys. Research moorings, naval research areas, oceanographic monitoring buoys and fishery survey tracts are also present. In recent years, more research has focused on the monitoring and removal of marine debris. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have permanent transect areas on Long Beach peninsula and other coastal razor clam harvesting beaches.
Tribal uses of the ocean were not mapped explicitly, though tribal chairs and/or their designated representatives were formally invited by BOEM to participate in the mapping workshops. The sharing of tribal use information was dependent upon each tribe’s determination of whether the mapping workshops were an appropriate forum for sharing such information. Any tribal use information shared during the workshops was incorporated into the defined use categories. Thus, the atlas data and map products do not explicitly depict tribal use. |