The White House Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Science and Technology Policy today announced the release of an Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for Ocean Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (“National Strategy”).
The release of the Implementation Plan — which details steps to fully map the deep waters of the U.S. EEZ by 2030 and coastal waters by 2040, explore and characterize priority areas, support technological innovation, and build partnerships — follows the June 2020 unveiling of the National Strategy, which was developed pursuant to a November 2019 Presidential Memorandum. It notes that there will be ongoing and regular opportunities for public input through forums including federal advisory committees, requests for information, workshops, and listening sessions.
Implementation Plan milestones of interest include the following:
- Develop report and/or geospatial-enabled platform of initial recommended strategic ocean exploration and characterization priorities in deep U.S. waters (June 2021, every ~2 years thereafter)
- Draft Standard Ocean Mapping Protocol released for public comment (June 2021)
- Convene annual ocean mapping, exploration, and characterization forum for federal and non-federal entities (Fall 2021)
- Convene workshop to identify mapping, exploration, and characterization technology priorities for the next 5-10 years, with accompanying report identifying recommendations for achievable technological innovations (March 2022)
- Establish a formal ongoing mechanism for engaging multisectoral representatives in strategic planning of implementation of the National Strategy (Spring 2022)
- Publish data collection standards, protocols, and file format sharing guidelines for use by federal agencies and
non-governmental partners that conduct deep ocean exploration to use when executing and supporting exploration and characterization missions within the U.S. EEZ (June 2022) - Revise and update Implementation Plan (June 2023, and periodically thereafter)
- Launch Exploration Gap Analysis tool to geospatially track areas explored from previous and ongoing exploration and characterization activities, track progress on exploring and characterizing existing priority areas, and identify new priority areas (2023)
- Completed Standard Ocean Mapping Protocol available for use by federal and external mapping operators (June 2026)
- Annually participate in at least one engagement opportunity for each of the eight U.S. regions, including convening two regional summits
- Annually acquire a minimum of 150,000 sq. nautical miles of new bathymetric data coverage
