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Resource Assessments • Scientific Diving

Desktop Studies

Desktop studies (DTS) are an effective tool for project planning, baseline environmental assessments, ecosystem-based management plans, marine spatial planning, and environmental impact analyses. They involve the compilation, analysis, and synthesis of existing data acquired from various worldwide academic, governmental, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and commercial databases.

GMI's multidisciplinary scientific staff has conducted more than 30 DTS in support of offshore alternative energy development, environmental planning for inshore/offshore military operations and training areas, and coastal/inland technical support documents. DTS are also very effective in supporting hydrokinetic projects, oil/gas exploration and production, and existing/planned cables and pipelines. GMI has conducted DTS encompassing the following aquatic (marine/freshwater) and terrestrial ecoregions:

• Faroe Islands (United Kingdom) to Cape Verde Islands (western Africa) including the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and open sea areas of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Macaronesian Oceanic Archipelago, and the Nordic Seas (Norwegian Sea, Icelandic Sea, and Barents Sea);
• Western and eastern Mediterranean Sea and adjoining Adriatic Sea;
• U.S. eastern marine/coastal regions from the Gulf of Maine through the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic Bights including Massachusetts Bay, Chesapeake Bay, and Albemarle-Pamlico Sound;
• Bahamian Archipelago;
• Northern Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands);
• U.S./Mexico western marine/coastal regions from the Guadalupe Islands to Washington State including San Diego Bay and Puget Sound, and Gulf of Alaska;
• Central/Indo-West Pacific: Hawaiian Islands, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), and the Japanese and Ryukyu (Okinawa) Archipelagos; and
• Texas Gulf Coast (Port Arthur to Brownsville) and U.S./Mexico International Land Border (Brownsville to San Diego, California).

Aquatic DTS generally address federally-protected species (marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, and fish); fisheries (commercial/recreational), habitats of concern (benthic seagrass and coral communities, critical habitats, and essential fish habitat); marine managed/protected areas; artificial structures; existing/planned cables and pipelines; shipping traffic; military maneuvers, obstructions, hazards, and restricted areas; archeological/cultural features; and environmental sensitivity indices, regulatory issues, and oceanography (physical, chemical, geological, and biological). Terrestrial DTS address the physical and natural environments, socioeconomic conditions, and cultural resources.

DTS are the result of data analysis and interpretation by GMI’s aquatic/terrestrial biologists, marine mammal scientists, ornithologists, sea turtle biologists, wetland scientists, ichthyologists, botanists, herpetologists, mammalogists, marine ecologists, coral reef ecologists, oceanographers, ecotoxicologists, acousticians, biostatisticians, GIS scientists, and modelers. Existing data sources are housed in GMI’s library which contains more than 30,000 aquatic/terrestrial references and a geodatabase consisting of 446,000 marine mammal/sea turtle records and avian records in the U.S and European Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific Ocean (sightings, strandings, and bycatch); as well as global mapping layers (physiographic features, benthic habitats, oceanographic data, man-made structural features, and regulatory resources).