The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Hydrographic Services Review Panel (HSRP) is a Federal Advisory Committee to the NOAA Administrator. The HSRP focuses on the mission of NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS), which is responsible for building and maintaining the nation's nautical charts, coastal water level observation network, and America's geographic and geodetic positioning framework, otherwise known as the National Spatial Reference System. A major mission of NOS is to protect life and property and support safe and efficient marine commerce. Demand for these services is evolving as the size of vessels continues to increase, challenging available water depths, channel widths, and overhead clearances in the nation's increasingly congested ports and harbors. The panel's membership includes national experts from industry and academia and provides an independent perspective on current, emerging, and critical issues associated with these programs. I've been a member of the HSRP since 2015 and have had the opportunity to co-lead the HSRP's Planning and Engagement working group, which identifies issues and recommends solutions.

Small boaters and fishermen have to safely share waterways with commercial ships that may be longer than aircraft carriers. Accurate tide, current, and positioning information is vital. Photo courtesy of BoatUS.

Defining an Issue Paper

The HSRP formally meets twice a year—each time in a different region of the U.S.—to understand the needs of state and local governments and emergency planners, to provide highly accurate and consistent data and services for safety of marine navigation, and to inform decision making and planning as they relate to coastal flooding, inundation, storm surge, and sea level rise. In addition to formal meetings, the group meets monthly via conference call to plan for future meetings and to develop issue papers, which provide research and information to shed light on the concerns of respective regions. These papers include brief overviews of issues at hand and recommendations for the NOAA Administrator. Since I've started on the panel, we've published 11 issue papers.

An Immediate Need for Safe Refuge in the Maritime Arctic

Each of these papers represent a serious concern facing the U.S. Some issues are immediate; some are concerns we'll be coming up against in the next few years. For example, in Charting the U.S. Maritime Arctic, we explain that because of Arctic sea ice retreat, large ships are now transiting poorly-charted Arctic waters between the north Atlantic and north Pacific and have no deep draft port of refuge, should they encounter difficulty. If a ship encounters a problem, it would have to make it all the way to Nome, Alaska, to get help, and Nome is only able to accommodate smaller ships. The U.S. has no significant ports on the Arctic coast. The HSRP developed eleven recommendations for the maritime Arctic, most of which would require major investments in our infrastructure, including our spatial data infrastructure.

If you think our ports and harbors are not of direct concern to you, just think about where most things sold by super-stores come from, where our cars, fuel, and appliances come from, and even where much of our food comes from. They arrive in the U.S. via ports that are clogged with megaships, and these ships are increasing in size year by year. It's important that NOAA be prepared for the future ahead, and ultimately satisfy its mission to keep maritime travel and commerce safe.

Next week I'll be sharing more about this topic, including the changes that were made to the Bayonne Bridge, which my colleague Ken Spahn mentioned in his blog just a few months ago.