Community Cohesion and Recovery after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Description: This team of researchers plans to use environmental, social, and economic data to examine how coastal communities’ abilities to self-organize and mobilize helped them respond to and recover from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. They will investigate the social-ecological drivers of community-level spill response and the role of nonprofit organizations and nonprofit networks in enhancing community cohesion after the spill. The researchers will generate outputs that scientists, nonprofits, and government stakeholders can use to help communities respond to and recover from oil spills more effectively.

Funding Cycle: Thriving Communities 2
Funding Organization: National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine: Gulf Research Program

Synthesizing AIS Ship Tracking Data, GNOME Oil Spill Model Results, and Subsistence Use Information into a Unique, Interactive Tool to Aid Research and Planning in Coastal Communities Bordering the Alaska Beaufort Sea

Description: The project team plans to develop an interactive, web-based mapping tool for planners, public and private stakeholders, and community members who rely on subsistence resources in Northern Alaska. This tool will integrate data products that describe vessel traffic patterns, estimated oil spill impacts, and subsistence use patterns for coastal communities along the Beaufort Sea. It is intended to help stakeholders understand how increased vessel traffic or an oil spill could affect different subsistence activities by comparing vessel track and spill impact density maps with newly available subsistence mapping and species distribution data. This tool could help decision makers and stakeholders in the Beaufort Sea area identify which subsistence use areas are particularly vulnerable to increased shipping activities and potential oil spills. A team of resource and community managers who are potential users of the tool will help guide its development. The final tool will have potential utility in other regions of the U.S. outer continental shelf that are experiencing some form of offshore oil development.

Funding Cycle: Thriving Communities 2
Funding Organization: National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine: Gulf Research Program

Understanding Oil Spill Impacts on Fishing Communities of the Gulf of Mexico: From Deepwater Horizon to Future Spill Scenarios

Description: The project team plans to synthesize data to explore and quantify how oil spills like Deepwater Horizon affect fishing communities. This work includes both understanding how spills impact communities’ economic, ecological, and social systems — and modeling how these systems could be affected by future spills. Using high-resolution, fishery-dependent datasets, the team will identify how individual communities were affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill. Econometric and hydrodynamic modeling studies will be used to predict such impacts from future potential spills. Working with key fisheries stakeholders and local decision makers, the team plans to identify adaptive strategies that communities could use to mitigate future oil spills’ effects. This project has the potential to transform disaster planning and fisheries management responses to such disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

Funding Cycle: Thriving Communities 2
Funding Organization: National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine: Gulf Research Program

Getting Started with the Artic Oil Spill Risk Assessment Portal

Assessing Risk to Arctic Subsistence Harvesting Areas from Marine Oil Spills

Arctic Oil Spill Risk Assessment (OSRA) Products

Disturbance Modifies Payoffs in the Explore-Exploit Trade-Off

Improving Detection of Short-Duration Fishing Behaviour in Vessel Tracks by Feature Engineering of Training Data

Classifying Fishing Behavioral Diversity Using High-Frequency Movement Data

Resilience of a Commercial Fishing Fleet Following Emergency Closures in the Gulf of Mexico

Predicting the Impact of Future Oil-Spill Closures on Fishery Revenues - A Spatially Explicit Approach

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fishery Closures for Deep Oil Spills Using a 4-Dimensional Model

Comparative Environmental Sensitivity of Offshore Gulf of Mexico Waters Potentially Impacted by Ultra-Deep Oil Well Blowouts

Invisible Oil Beyond the Deepwater Horizon Satellite Footprint