CSA’s senior scientist Mary Jo Barkaszi will be presenting at the State of the Science Workshop on Wildlife and Offshore Wind on November 19th in the Cumulative Impacts Session. Her talk, titled Vessel Encounter Risk Model Tool, will summarize the development of a vessel strike risk model that allows users to assess potential vessel strike impacts to large whales and sea turtles from offshore wind development along the United States Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. The model represents a significant step in standardizing vessel strike impacts, and enables managers to aggregate impact risks on large spatial and temporal scales. The project was funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the presentation will be co-authored by Kyle Baker from BOEM’s Office of Renewable Energy Program.

The annual workshop brings together top industry, agency, and science personnel with the goals of assessing the state of the knowledge regarding offshore wind development’s cumulative effects on populations and ecosystems, and developing a research agenda of key studies that could be conducted over the next 3–5 years to improve our understanding of cumulative biological impacts as the offshore wind industry develops in the eastern United States.

For more information on the workshop, click here.