Publications

ProtectedSeas Navigator centralizes data about marine protected areas—and places with lesser protections—from around the world.

Launched in June 2023, Navigator is featured in Nautilus here.

Offshore wind energy is on the way to becoming a significant U.S. renewable energy source. Recently, Anna-Katharina von Krauland co-authored the US offshore wind energy atlas.  “The ProtectedSeas dataset provides an intuitive and integrated resource for understanding otherwise fragmented marine spatial planning data, which along with the expert advice offered by the team, was hugely helpful in determining which regulations pertain specifically to wind energy development, ultimately enabling a more realistic atlas.”

~ Anna-Katharina von Krauland Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University.  

Link to study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590174523000661?via%3Dihub

• Direct MPA regulations or management plans rarely address the complete set of fishing and activity restrictions in place.
• Regulation-based MPA evaluation systems can reliably identify fully and highly protected areas, even with unknown information.
• Navigator’s Level of Fishing Protection (LFP) scores can help guide assumptions about unknown information.
• Using existing datasets to assign protection levels (following the RBCS or similar) allows for faster global assessments of protection.

Abstract

Strong human use regulations are an important precondition for marine protected area (MPA) effectiveness. Distinguishing MPAs based on their protection levels has shown advantages, but the availability of regulatory information about allowed activities is a major roadblock towards completing assessments at scale. Here, using a California case study, we explore assigning MPA protection levels following the regulation-based classification system (RBCS) under different scenarios of incomplete regulatory information. In the first group of scenarios (A), only readily available information was used, i.e., information contained in direct MPA implementing regulations and management plans. In the second group (B), information was limited to the activities in ProtectedSeas’ Navigator that matched those in the RBCS. From group A, 99% and 100% correct classification of fully and highly protected areas, respectively, were obtained when treating unknown aquaculture, bottom exploitation, and bottom extraction as ‘prohibited’ and boating, anchoring, and fishing activities as ‘allowed’. High classification accuracy was also obtained for moderately, poorly, and unprotected areas. From group B, 92% and 94% correct classification of fully and highly protected areas were obtained when using the same assumptions for non-fishing activities but using Navigator’s Level of Fishing Protection (LFP) score to guide assumptions about unknown fishing activities. Correct classification rates were poorer with different assumptions. Regulation-based MPA evaluation systems can reliably identify fully and highly protected areas in the face of unknown information, when assumptions about unknown information are guided by contextual indicators such as generally regulated human activities and/or overall level of fishing restriction.

• • Accurate estimates of ocean conservation progress require accessible regulatory data.
  • Fishing restrictions within MPAs and MMAs inform marine protection coverage.
  • U.S. MPAs and MMAs are most protective nearshore and in low population areas offshore.
  • Overlapping MPAs and MMAs make overall assessments of protection challenging.
  • Cumulative analysis of overlapping prohibitions provides new insights into management.

Abstract

Comprehensive, spatially explicit data that include regulatory information are essential for evaluating the level of protection that marine protected areas (MPAs) and other marine managed areas (MMAs) provide to marine life, and to inform progress towards ocean protection targets. An analysis based on the ProtectedSeas database, which includes information on regulated activities, found that 85% of U.S. waters are in managed areas that restrict living resource extraction at some level above generally applicable regulations, with 52% managed at a low level of protection and 3% managed as highly protected no-take areas. States with the most state waters area in no-take MPAs are Hawaii (~25%), California (~9%), and Oregon (~3%). The majority of highly protected areas in U.S. waters exist in low-populated areas of the Pacific, such as the Papahānaumokuākea and Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monuments. Under a quarter of U.S. waters are closed to bottom trawling, with the West Coast and Alaska each contributing one-third of trawl closures by area. Bottom trawling is prohibited in nearly 90% of West Coast waters. Focusing on waters off California showed that overlapping management and fishing gear restrictions can increase overall protection. In state waters, no-take MPAs account for roughly 9% of the area, while restricted take MPAs of different types cover 27% of the area. About 40% of California state waters are in some kind of MPA, while 13.4% of state waters have a high level of protection from fishing impacts. In federal waters off California, under one percent are in no-take areas while nearly all waters are subject to some kind of fishery restriction. Capturing regulatory information at the individual MPA and MMA level will improve assessments of current protection, inform planning of new protections, and provide ocean users a more accessible way to increase compliance through awareness.

Central California MPAs and MMAs. The left map depicts highest categorical LFP (1–5) assigned to a given ocean area; the middle map shows cumulative number of fishing gears prohibited (0–8); and the right map shows total number of overlapping management areas (0–20). *National Geographic World Basemap courtesy of Esri, National Geographic and partners.