- Success Stories
- Environmental Resource Assessment & Management
Expanding Our Offshore Wind Team

We’ve recently added several staff to bolster the offshore wind team at NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. With this full team of 13, our employee owners are able to provide more focused support in their areas of expertise, including mapping and spatial modeling, data collection, communications, project management, and partner engagement. Through this work, the team develops regional ecosystem-wide spatial models to inform siting of ocean use sectors, environmental review, and permitting, which provides guidance to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on suitable locations for offshore wind siting.
Sustainable coastal planning and development increases resiliency, creates jobs, reduces reliance on unsustainable imports, supports renewable energy, and grows the domestic Blue Economy. Check out the NCCOS Coastal & Marine Planning and Offshore Wind Energy spatial planning webpages to learn more.
This team is now providing spatial planning support in all U.S. ocean regions and was recently instrumental in BOEM designating two Wind Energy Areas in the Gulf of Mexico. As offshore wind continues to expand throughout U.S. waters, this team will continue to collaborate with BOEM to support the identification of suitable locations for renewable energy. Future work is slated for the U.S. Central Atlantic, Gulf of Maine, Oregon, and more to come!
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New Heavily Desired High Resolution Land Cover Data for the U.S.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently announced the launch of the long desired high-resolution coastal land cover data. This highly anticipated data are available for most coastal areas of the U.S., including Alaska and the U.S. territories. CSS employee owners contributed to the release of this data set by participating in production activities and…

New Contract. Same Great Work.
We’re pleased to announce a new small business joint venture with Paul Bechtel & Associates (PB&A), which was awarded a 5-year contract to continue supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs. For 40 years our staff have supported EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs in the review and evaluation of pesticide data.…

Training Citizen Scientists on Identifying Harmful Phytoplankton Within their Communities
Since 2018, CSS employee owners have provided support to NOAA’s Phytoplankton Monitoring Network (PMN) program, which is managed out of NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS). NOAA’s Phytoplankton Monitoring Network provides a highly valued bridge between the public and aquatic ecosystem researchers. Through this program, citizen scientists collect water samples from their designated…