Photo Credit: Pat Kemmish, F/V Richard H

This project aims to enhance the ability of coastal ocean observing systems to support the climate-readying of fisheries threatened by ocean deoxygenation. New low-cost dissolved oxygen (DO) sensors deployed in crab pots will yield expanded near-real time data, allowing the fishing community and managers to monitor low-oxygen conditions in order to identify when to pull crab pots or the best areas to place them. Readily available in-water observations of dissolved oxygen can be used to define and monitor climate vulnerability to hypoxia exposure to help National Marine Sanctuary managers and other state and local managers responsible for spatial planning. This work will benefit coastal ocean observing systems by expanding their capabilities to serve and maximize the potential of fleet-based (citizen science) observations, significantly increasing the number of available dissolved oxygen measurements to verify and improve coastal ocean model predictions. This project has three primary goals:

1. Refine a recently developed dissolved oxygen (DO) sensing package that is currently being deployed by commercial, tribal, and recreational fisherfolks and state managers to cost-effectively detect and track the progression of seasonal hypoxia; transform this DO sensing package into operational elements of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), National Marine Sanctuaries, Fisheries and coastal ocean forecasting.
2. Streamline, expand, and automate the data and knowledge delivery system for use by fisherfolks, the scientific community, fisheries managers and policy makers. The project will use existing linkages with the IOOS’s Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) to build flexible data-serving capacity to meet the rapid growth in collaborative ocean observing, and augment the currently sparse data available for validation of coastal biogeochemical models.
3. Grow the community of users and observations to enhance partnerships and support for an operational regional-scale hypoxia observing system across the Pacific Northwest.

Funding:

• Year 1: $400,000
• Year 2: $400,000
• Year 3: $400,000
• Total: $1,200,000

Partners:
Oregon State University, The Sexton Corporation, Oregon State University, University of Washington/APL/NANOOS, Quinault Indian Nation, Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center