scholarly journals Ocean data portals: Performing a new infrastructure for ocean governance

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noëlle Boucquey ◽  
Kevin St. Martin ◽  
Luke Fairbanks ◽  
Lisa M Campbell ◽  
Sarah Wise

We are currently in what might be termed a “third phase” of ocean enclosures around the world. This phase has involved an unprecedented intensity of map-making that supports an emerging regime of ocean governance where resources are geocoded, multiple and disparate marine uses are weighed against each other, spatial tradeoffs are made, and exclusive rights to spaces and resources are established. The discourse and practice of marine spatial planning inform the contours of this emerging regime. This paper examines the infrastructure of marine spatial planning via two ocean data portals recently created to support marine spatial planning on the East Coast of the United States. Applying theories of ontological politics, critical cartography, and a critical conceptualization of “care,” we examine portal performances in order to link their organization and imaging practices with the ideological and ontological work these infrastructures do, particularly in relation to environmental and human community actors. We further examine how ocean ontologies may be made durable through portal use and repetition, but also how such performances can “slip,” thereby creating openings for enacting marine spatial planning differently. Our analysis reveals how portal infrastructures assemble, edit, and visualize data, and how it matters to the success of particular performances of marine spatial planning.

Author(s):  
William H. McNeill

IN THE LATTER part of the nineteenth century, east coast city dwellers in the United States had difficulty repressing a sense of their own persistent cultural inferiority vis-à-vis London and Paris. At the same time a great many old-stock Americans were dismayed by the stream of immigrants coming to these shores whose diversity called the future cohesion of the Republic into question almost as seriously as the issue of slavery had done in the decades before the Civil War. In such a climate of opinion, the unabashed provinciality of Frederick Jackson Turner's (1861-1932) paper "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered at a meeting of the newly founded American Historical Association in connection with the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1892), began within less than a decade to resound like a trumpet call, though whether it signalled advance or retreat remained profoundly ambiguous....


Author(s):  
Stephen B. Olsen ◽  
Jennifer McCann ◽  
Monique LaFrance Bartley

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison W. Bates

Marine spatial planning (MSP) offers an operational framework to address sustainable and well-planned use of ocean space. Spatial allocation has traditionally been single-sector, which fails to account for multiple pressures on the marine environment and user conflicts. There is a need for integrated assessments of ocean space to advance quantitative tools and decision-making. Using the example of offshore wind energy, this article offers thoughts about how MSP has evolved in the United States and how the varying scales of MSP achieve different outcomes. Finally, a review of quantitative and qualitative studies that are needed to support MSP are presented.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Fairbanks ◽  
Noëlle Boucquey ◽  
Lisa M. Campbell ◽  
Sarah Wise

Marine spatial planning (MSP) seeks to integrate traditionally disconnected oceans activities, management arrangements, and practices through a rational and comprehensive governance system. This article explores the emerging critical literature on MSP, focusing on key elements of MSP engaged by scholars: (1) planning discourse and narrative; (2) ocean economies and equity; (3) online ocean data and new digital ontologies; and (4) new and broad networks of ocean actors. The implications of these elements are then illustrated through a discussion of MSP in the United States. Critical scholars are beginning to go beyond applied or operational critiques of MSP projects to engage the underlying assumptions, practices, and relationships involved in planning. Interrogating MSP with interdisciplinary ideas drawn from critical social science disciplines, such as emerging applications of relational theory at sea, can provide insights into how MSP and other megaprojects both close and open new opportunities for social and environmental well-being.


1985 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 578-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davis R. Robinson ◽  
David A. Colson ◽  
Bruce C. Rashkow

On October 12, 1984, a five-member Chamber of the International Court of Justice rendered its decision in the maritime boundary dispute between the United States and Canada in the Gulf of Maine area. The Chamber delimited the continental shelves and 200-nautical-mile fisheries zones by setting one line between the two countries off the East Coast of North America. The Chamber’s Judgment, which under Article 27 of the Statute of the Court is considered as if it were rendered by the full 15-member Court, is likely to attract considerable comment. We will resist the temptation to add our views to that substantive commentary, leaving analysis for the time being to others not so closely associated with the case.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (04) ◽  
pp. 1850012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra Ryan ◽  
Andy Danylchuk ◽  
Adrian Jordaan

The United States only accounts for 0.2% of the global offshore wind installed capacity despite a potential technical resource four orders of magnitude greater. A cumbersome permitting process is one of the challenges in implementing new projects. Part of this process requires biological data in order to inform assessments of environmental impacts; yet these data may be lacking for particular taxa at the required scale. Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process that often includes data identification, collection, collation and analyses components. In this paper, we conduct a collective case study of three areas with offshore wind projects located in waters managed by marine spatial plans, focusing on how data efforts inform MSP and offshore wind development. Our study finds that MSP can facilitate data efforts during the permitting phase of offshore wind projects, but that other initiatives, particularly renewable energy policies and zoning, appear critical towards establishing offshore wind.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Chris E. Ostrander ◽  
Harvey Seim ◽  
Elizabeth Smith ◽  
Ben Studer ◽  
Audra Luscher-Aissauoi ◽  
...  

AbstractA changing climate, coupled with increasing development and population growth within the coastal margins of the United States, presents a growing threat to coastal populations, ecosystems, and infrastructure associated with chronic and catastrophic coastal hazards and a growing reliance on coastal resources. The U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) provides a unique capability to observe the coastal and open ocean waters of the United States and provide value-added, customized data tools, products, and services to inform decision making related to coastal hazards and resources management, assessment, and risk by individuals, resource managers, policy makers, and local agencies. Increasingly, the partnership of IOOS Regional Associations with the U.S. IOOS Program Office has the capacity to provide critical observational and scientific information needed to inform coastal planning and management efforts related to some of the most pressing problems facing our coastal zone: namely, impacts of a changing climate on coastal communities and ecosystems, sea level rise, and the competing and oftentimes conflicting uses of our coastal zone that necessitate integrated Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning. Discussed herein are three examples of regional IOOS capacity to provide information related to beach safety, coastal inundation, and marine spatial planning.


2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malini Ratnasingam ◽  
Lee Ellis

Background. Nearly all of the research on sex differences in mass media utilization has been based on samples from the United States and a few other Western countries. Aim. The present study examines sex differences in mass media utilization in four Asian countries (Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore). Methods. College students self-reported the frequency with which they accessed the following five mass media outlets: television dramas, televised news and documentaries, music, newspapers and magazines, and the Internet. Results. Two significant sex differences were found when participants from the four countries were considered as a whole: Women watched television dramas more than did men; and in Japan, female students listened to music more than did their male counterparts. Limitations. A wider array of mass media outlets could have been explored. Conclusions. Findings were largely consistent with results from studies conducted elsewhere in the world, particularly regarding sex differences in television drama viewing. A neurohormonal evolutionary explanation is offered for the basic findings.


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