Current and Recent Projects

The Seafloor Observation Scenario Exploration Tool is a suitability modeling tool focused on deep seafloor areas. The process allows users to select and combine multiple sources of information to determine the best areas to carry out different activities. Initially developed for land-based spatial planning, I adapted the suitability modeling process for use in marine spatial planning to guide users in choosing areas of the seafloor to observe, explore, and protect. 

The Seafloor Observation Scenario Exploration Tool is one example of how planning-relevant data can be made available to stakeholders and rights holders in any country through an accessible online interface, allowing users to engage with multiple global datasets to plan exploration under various scenarios. 

The web-based tool can be accessed at bit.ly/seafloor-tool. An academic overview of the work was published in a special Advances in Ocean Exploration issue of Frontiers in Marine Science, and an illustrated guide to using the tool is available at bit.ly/seafloortool-guide.

Coastal nations have jurisdiction over their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) - the ocean area extending 200 nautical miles from a country's coast. Over 80% of the combined area of the world's EEZs contains deep ocean - waters deeper than 200m. To help viewers understand just how much deep ocean these coastal areas contain, I created an interactive ocean dashboard that lets users explore individual EEZs to see the proportion of deep-ocean in their nationally-controlled waters, and how deep that ocean extends.

The dashboard debuted at the Ocean Pavilion for the UN Climate Change Conference, COP28 UAE. Delegates could use the mobile or desktop version of the dashboard, alongside additional resources and policy briefs, to understand the scale and roles of their countries' deep ocean in climate change issues. 

Both desktop and mobile versions can be accessed through https://bit.ly/DeepSeaEEZ , and a French translation of the dashboard has also been created in partnership with the African Network of Deep-water Researchers.

As a follow up to the "How much deep sea is in your EEZ?" dashboard, I created an additional dashboard for users to further explore individual EEZs during the 2024 UN Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

Delegates used the dashboard to learn about the areas of deep ocean and seafloor geomorphological features present in their EEZ. Both desktop and mobile versions can be accessed through bit.ly/ExploreYourEEZ.

In October 2023, the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy convened a Deep Ocean Collective Solution Accelerator event, bringing together community expertise through a series of concurrent workshops. As part of this effort, the Habitat Conservation and Marine Spatial Planning workshop group created a StoryMap, offering an overview of the classification of benthic (seafloor) habitats, built from ideas and techniques discussed during the workshop. 

The StoryMap can be accessed through bit.ly/BenthicHabitats

Readers who want to use the approaches we outlined to implement habitat classification can find links to companion tutorials for R and ArcGIS within the Open Science Tutorials section of the StoryMap.