A Decision Support Tool for Marine Spatial Planning in the State of Washington

Ocean renewable energy has attracted high levels of interest in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and worldwide.  Several challenges face the development of ocean renewable, including identifying and mitigating impacts to the environment and fish stocks.  A research and development effort was initiated under the Bonneville Power Administrations (BPA) in 2007 to provide a decision support system (IDSS) to serve as a regional marine spatial planning tool.  The IDSS is intended to assist with the identification of resource potential and constraints and conflicts in a geospatial context in order to facilitate project planning, site selection, and assess potential environmental impacts.  The IDSS under development includes a web-based mapping tool, GIS and marine resource databases and metadata, a tidal resource estimator tool, and data visualization and reporting methods.  The IDSS is intended to be used to identify and assess ocean renewable power installations that are socially and environmentally acceptable while providing power generation.  The resulting tools are intended to have benefits to regulatory agencies and industry proponents and be generally applicable to evaluate locations where there is an interest in ocean power developments.