NSF Convergence Accelerator Track E: Regional Climate Change Projections to Enable Equitable Ocean Planning for the Blue Economy

CBET-2137701 NSF Convergence Accelerator Track E: Regional climate change projections to enable equitable ocean planning for the blue economy. The coastal ocean can dramatically enhance human well-being through sustainable seafood, clean energy production, spiritual rejuvenation, satisfying careers, and abundant natural resources. To make important decisions about use of the coastal ocean, humans largely rely on past experience. With climate change, however, past experience is no longer an adequate reference for the future. There is an urgent need for individuals and organizations engaged in ocean activities to anticipate future changes and make decisions that are robust to an uncertain future. The project's overarching objectives are to: 1) Guide the development of the offshore ocean economy with projections of climate impacts on wind energy, fisheries, and conservation, 2) Collaboratively design web tools that empower diverse community members to integrate climate information into their decision-making, and 3) Develop methods for engaging marginalized communities in decisions about the development of the regional ocean economy. Business investment in fisheries infrastructure, port development, offshore wind energy siting, ocean planning, and conservation planning are all examples of important decisions that climate projections can inform. This project aims to enable climate-ready, coordinated, and inclusive decision making throughout the blue economy and spark a new generation of durable blue development. Informing decisions with future climate information requires a keen understanding of and engagement with the audience, including efforts to match the temporal and spatial scales at which people need information, inform decisions that benefit from climate knowledge, and respond to the policy ecosystem in which decisions are made. There has been a persistent gap between climate data production and its use, largely because too much climate science is useful but not readily usable. This proposal is designed to bridge this usability gap through knowledge co-production with diverse actors in the regional blue economy in order to translate useful climate impact data into credible and accessible knowledge that informs more equitable blue economy decisions. By integrating climate models with ecological and economic models, this project will develop temporally and spatially downscaled projections of climate impacts on fisheries, offshore wind resources, and conservation opportunities that match the scales of decision-making. To make these projections usable, the project will collaboratively design a prototype decision support tool that empowers diverse community members to integrate climate information into their decision-making and develop participatory processes for engaging marginalized communities in regional ocean planning. The broader impacts of the project include improved well-being through more effective and durable ocean decisions, broadened participation of marginalized groups in ocean planning, and broadened participation of members of underrepresented groups in science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.