Understanding Multi-Use

Understanding Multi-Use: A Social-Ecological Approach to the Development of Integrated Offshore Food/Wind Energy Systems

This event was held on January 31st to learn more about possible strategies towards advancing multi-use or co-existence in our coasts and oceans.

Coastal oceans are crowded with traditional demands for space for fisheries, oil and gas production, transportation, shipping, recreation, and now, for accelerated renewable energy developments. Marine spatial planning (MSP) is used worldwide as an adaptive management process to understand, communicate, and help resolve competing uses of coastal oceans worldwide. This approach can help develop a way to integrate offshore wind energy systems with food production. There have been a number of cooperative international advances in the ecosystems-food-energy nexus that we will consider in this discussion that may serve as models for the U.S.

This discussion was led by Barry Costa-Pierce, Professor in the Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture, Nord University, Bodø, Norway, and CEO of the Ecological Aquaculture Foundation LLC.

This event is being organized by the University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center, the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, and Rhode Island Sea Grant.

This webinar was partially funded through a project supported by the National Science Foundation (Award number 2022355) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) titled "Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Assessment Framework for Successful Development of Viable Ocean."