MARCO Portal Adds Interactive Maps of N.Y. Bight Offshore Wind Areas and 2020 Vessel Traffic

Several hundred interactive maps have recently been added to the Portal’s maritime, renewable energy, fishing, and seafloor habitat themes. Click the links below for more information about any of these new products.

BOEM NY Bight Proposed Wind Energy Areas for 2021 Lease Sale: A pair of maps showing the areas of a proposed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) offshore wind energy lease sale in the New York Bight have been added to the Portal’s Renewable Energy theme. Users may analyze these areas in combination with any of the Portal’s thousands of data layers and share their comments with BOEM by Aug. 13, 2021.

 2020 AIS Vessel Transit Counts: Study annual and monthly vessel traffic patterns from 2020 with a series of maps based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Users can animate or toggle through monthly maps showing concentrations for cargo ships, fishing vessels, sail boats, tugboats and tow barges, and more.

 USCG Chesapeake Bay Approaches PARS Proposed Fairways: View a network of shipping safety fairways proposed by the Coast Guard’s Chesapeake Bay Approaches Port Access Route Study (PARS) draft report to accommodate future vessel traffic in and out of bay and around the Virginia offshore wind energy lease area.

USCG Chesapeake Bay Approaches PARS Proposed Fairways

Fishing Effects to Sea Bottom: We’ve added 350 interactive map layers that model annual and monthly impacts of fishing gear on the seafloor as well as the types of sediments commonly found along the bottom of ocean areas and estuaries throughout the region.

Fishing Management Areas: Several major updates have been made to the Portal’s collection of maps of fisheries management areas and closures based on feedback received from fisheries managers and industry members.

Intro to the Portal Webinar: Watch a recording of our June “How Tuesday” webinar offering a 101 tutorial on the Portal’s data and tools.

We’d love to hear what you think about these or any other features on the Portal. Send your questions or comments to the MARCO Portal team at portal@midatlanticocean.org.

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