**A Synthesis of Ocean, Coastal and Great Lakes Challenges and
Priorities: A Starting Point for Creating the Next National Sea Grant
College Program Strategic Plan**

NOAA Sea Grant College Program is embarking on a strategic planning
process designed to focus the energy of the entire Sea Grant network on
critical national, state and regional issues related to the future of
the nation's coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources and coastal
communities. This planning process provides Sea Grant with an
opportunity to reinvent the ways we work together within the network and
with our many partners outside the network to ensure that our
federal-state-university based partnership with its built in capacity
for research, education, outreach and communication is making truly
significant, measurable contributions to the long-term sustainability of
U.S. ocean and coastal resources.

The process developed to create the new Sea Grant national plan calls
for a "top-down" review of relevant national plans and a "bottom-up"
review of state and regional Sea Grant plans. This is to ensure that the
plan will be responsive to national priorities and informed by
priorities identified in the state Sea Grant plans and represent a
well-integrated response to the most challenging issues of the day. This
is a synthesis of key findings contained in these "top-down" and
"bottom-up" reviews organized under the following four major headings:

-   Context

-   Needs and Priorities

-   Progress and Gaps: Potential Roles for Sea Grant

-   Partnership Efforts.

The "top-down" and "bottom-up" snapshots should be viewed as companion
documents to this synthesis. They provide documentation on the nature
and limits of this review of national, state and regional plans.

**Context**

Plans reviewed identified the following context for current planning
efforts.

**Rapid growth in coastal population.** More than half of the U.S.
population lives in coastal areas and that proportion is expected to
increase, leading to growing urbanization of coastal areas, greater
pressure on ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources, greater
vulnerability to natural hazards such as climatic, storm or
tsunami-related sea level rise, and more conflict among coastal users.

**Coastal habitat degradation.** Changes in land use and new and
intensified activities along the coast continue to lead to habitat loss
and fragmentation, decline in water quality, spread of invasive species
and threats to human health from water and seafood contamination.

**Climate variability and change.** Recent increases in number and
ferocity of coastal hazards underscores the need for better
understanding of climate forces and changes and the near and longer-term
impacts of these changes on human health and safety, ecosystem health,
and on the economic health and sustainability of coastal communities.

**Fisheries under stress.** The U.S. has witnessed the decline and in
some cases collapse of many of its major fisheries at the same time that
seafood consumption is on the rise, resulting in serious challenges for
fishermen and the fishing industry, a seafood trade deficit of about \$9
billion a year, and renewed interest in fisheries restoration and the
potential of aquaculture.

**Limited coastal literacy.** Limited understanding among students,
science teachers, and the public at large about the nature, condition
and prospects of America's ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources
means we lack a strong, informed constituency to support ocean and
coastal priorities.

**Fragmented decision-making without adequate information.** There is a
need for more and better information and for coordination and commitment
to informed ocean/coastal decision-making at all levels.

**Other Issues.** Trends in addition to those identified above include
rapid world population growth; an aging population, particularly in the
coastal area; major political/economic changes on a global basis;
terrorism as a continuing threat; ever-growing energy demands driving a
search for alternative sources, and the explosion of information
technology, all of which may have significant implications for the
protection, use and management of our coastal resources.

**Needs and Priorities**

The review of coastal needs and priorities as reflected in current
strategic plans was conducted at the national, state, and regional
levels. It demonstrated some major commonalities, as well as
differences, due to the different geography and missions of the
organizations.

**National Perspective.** The review of national plans sought to
identify major areas of over-lap with regard to ocean/coastal/Great
Lakes needs and priorities. The following five priorities appeared most
frequently in the plans reviewed.

-   Understanding and managing the relationship between humans and the
    environment, especially as it relates to sustainability of resources
    and their habitat.

-   Understanding and managing interactions between commercial and
    recreational coastal activities and the environment.

-   Understanding the impacts of climate variability and change on the
    ocean and the implications of these impacts on coastal environments
    and communities.

-   Understanding and improving ecosystem health through assessment,
    modeling and effective management.

-   Understanding and addressing ocean related risks to human health.

**State Perspective.** Sea Grant state programs across the country are
active in a wide variety of areas, dictated by the particular needs of
their regions, but they do share a number of top concerns/priorities
with each other and several that coincide with national priorities as
well. The top five priorities across state programs are:

-   Strengthening coastal communities and economies through better
    knowledge and planning, and enhanced consensus-building and
    decision-making capabilities.

-   Minimizing negative impacts of human-induced changes to coastal
    ecosystems and developing and implementing methods of restoring
    damaged coastal habitats.

-   Revitalizing and maintaining robust marine fisheries.

-   Developing a sustainable U.S. marine aquaculture industry.

-   Improving marine and aquatic science literacy among students at all
    levels and the public at large.

While these reflect the priorities that were common across almost all
state plans, there are other concerns that received high priority in
specific states. These include invasive species in the California
Current, Great Lakes, Caribbean and Insular Pacific region states,
coastal hazards in the California Current, Caribbean and Insular Pacific
region states, bio-technology advancements in the California Current and
South Atlantic region states, and seafood science and technology and
marine and aquatic science literacy in Alaska.

**Regional Perspective.** There are eight new regional planning efforts
underway across the country to develop regional coastal research and
information plans. Unlike the state plans reviewed---many of which are
coming to the end of their five-year planning cycle---these regional
planning efforts reflect current thinking about what our coastal
priorities should be in the future. Each region is being given
considerable latitude in identifying themes and priorities. Only three
of these efforts are far enough along to share preliminary themes.

> **Gulf of Mexico:** Improving Ecosystem Health, Stewardship of Natural
> and Cultural Resources, Enhancing Human Health, Enabling Marine
> Operations, Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards, the Ocean's Role
> in Climate.
>
> **Gulf of Maine:** Effects of Climate Change, Conservation and
> Sustainability, Oceans and Human Health, Management and Governance.
>
> **Pacific NW & SW:** Social and Economic Vitality of Coastal
> Communities, Coastal Natural Hazards, Human Health, Ecosystem
> Dynamics, Ocean's Role in Climate Variability, Marine Transportation
> and Security, Ocean Education and Environmental Literacy.

**Progress and Gaps: Potential Roles for Sea Grant**

NOAA Sea Grant brings a unique combination of national, state and local
perspectives and functional capacities to tackling coastal needs and
priorities. Sea Grant is a national program that is implemented at the
state and local levels. It is a federal-university-partnership that
engages academic communities in addressing local, regional and national
issues. Using its unique combination of applied research, extension,
education, and communications capacities, Sea Grant plays a major role
in the development of and efficient transfer of science-based
information to support effective public and private coastal related
decision-making.

The review of national, state and regional plans highlights some
examples of where Sea Grant Programs and others are addressing the top
national priorities and where and how Sea Grant might be particularly
well suited to help fill gaps that exist in addressing these priorities.

1.  Understanding and managing the relationship between humans and the
    environment, especially as it relates to sustainability of resources
    and their habitat.

-   NOAA and many partner agencies are working to develop ecosystem
    forecasts and NOAA is leading a multi-disciplinary effort to conduct
    Integrated Ecosystem Assessments that will assist in the improved
    understanding of complex relationships between humans and the
    environment.

-   Sea Grant can lead community engagement efforts and the translation
    of research results on multiple scales, providing coastal
    communities with the best available science-based information for
    long-term community development decision-making, and on efforts to
    build marine and aquatic literacy through its work with the Centers
    for Ocean Science Education (COSEE) and others.

2.  Understanding and managing interactions between commercial and
    recreational coastal activities and the environment.

-   As U.S. ports expand, security threats increase, and once-public
    access areas are privatized, work by NOAA, the Coast Guard, Homeland
    Security and other partners to do ocean and port mapping, clear and
    manage waterways, and secure ports, becomes increasingly important.
    The integrated earth observation work underway is helping with
    monitoring shores, understanding coastlines and predicting severe
    natural events. Another result of heightened security threats is the
    concern for food safety and Sea Grant has led the way in aquaculture
    research and development and other topics related to a safe and
    adequate food supply.

-   Sea Grant can build on a long history of research, outreach and
    education to promote ways to balance resource use and protection and
    manage competition among coastal users. Sea Grant's aquaculture
    experience makes it well suited to address the emerging field of
    offshore aquaculture. It is also suited to play a lead role in
    ensuring the new coastal/ocean observing systems provide
    technologies and instrumentation to make this information maximally
    useful to the entire range of coastal users.

3.  Understanding the impacts of climate variability and change on the
    ocean and the implications of these impacts on coastal environments
    and communities.

-   Recent interagency efforts to increase our understanding of climate
    change led by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program have advanced
    the science tremendously and recent attention to climate issues in
    the news has raised public awareness and understanding about these
    issues.

-   Sea Grant could help fill a gap in building understanding of coastal
    users needs for specific types of information, translating the
    results of scientific experiments into useable information for these
    same users to help them prepare for and address the impacts of
    climate variability and change.

4.  Understanding and improving ecosystem health through assessment,
    modeling and effective management.

-   The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and Pew Oceans Commission made
    milestone recommendations for improving coastal management in the
    U.S. The Coastal Zone Management Act re-authorization provides
    another opportunity to-examine domestic coastal management. The
    National Marine Fisheries Service, Sea Grant and many other federal
    agencies are involved in research and management activities designed
    to revitalize and maintain the nation's fisheries and coastal
    environment.

-   The Office of Management and Budget has called for enhanced
    integration of NOAA activities related to ecosystem health and there
    are numerous opportunities to advance knowledge, management and
    governance in this arena. Sea Grant is uniquely positioned to foster
    cooperative research and best management practices with regard to
    things like stock assessment, habitat and ecosystem restoration and
    area management strategies. Sea Grant's front-line presence allows
    it to advance the use of the latest management information and
    technologies in practices and decision-making at the local level.

5.  Understanding and addressing ocean related risks to human health.

-   The National Institute of Environmental Health Services, U.S. AID,
    NOAA, EPA, and the National Science Foundation are all playing lead
    roles in addressing ocean related risks to human health.

-   Sea Grant's greatest potential to contribute to this need is through
    working to: build interdisciplinary research capacity; develop
    integrated databases and effective communication and education
    networks; and develop and maintain the infrastructure required to
    answer emerging questions of public health significance, including
    seafood safety and others.

**Partnership Efforts**

Sea Grant is involved in a number of key partnerships to provide
coordinated responses to national, state and regional coastal needs and
priorities. Examples of significant partnership efforts are highlighted
below.

**Smart Growth**. Representatives of the National Sea Grant Office, the
Sea Grant network, the Coastal Services Center and other parts of NOAA
have developed a partnership with EPA's Offices of Wetlands, Oceans and
Watershed and Policy, Economics and Innovation to advance education,
outreach and implementation activities related to smart growth practices
along the coast.

**Emergency Response**. Many Sea Grant state programs have built
partnerships with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is also
an emerging partnership at the national level for Sea Grant to
collaborate with FEMA in its mission to reduce loss of life and property
and protect the nation from all hazards including natural disasters,
acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters through preparedness,
protection, response, recovery and mitigation.

**Coastal Community Development.** At the direction of OMB, the Sea
Grant Program and NOAA's Coastal Services Center, Office of Ocean and
Coastal Resource Management, and National Center for Coastal Ocean
Science are strengthening their collaboration in addressing specific
coastal issues. The two thematic issues selected for this integration
effort are Hazard Resilient Coastal Communities and Coastal Land
Use/Development. The Sea Grant Program also has a Coastal Community
Development initiative designed to promote partnerships at the community
decision-making level by providing the enhanced science-based support
needed to balance environmental, social and economic considerations in
the decision-making process.

**Marine Transportation**. Sea Grant's Ports and Harbors partnership
provides a direct point of contact between Sea Grant and some of the
nation's largest ports to balance the principles of sustainable
development with the nation's need for marine transportation and harbor
security.

**Marine Laws and Policies**. Sea Grant established a partnership with
the University of Mississippi in 2002 to create the National Sea Grant
Law Center. The primary role of the Center is to provide legal
education, outreach and research services to the Sea Grant network and
its constituents. One of their initial activities was to contribute to
legal analyses done by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy of the laws
that affect the nation's oceans and coasts as mandated by the Oceans Act
of 2000.

**Coastal Science Education.** Sea Grant is part of the major COSEE
initiative in marine education in cooperation with the National Science
Foundation. This initiative seeks to enhance collaboration among ocean
scientists, educators and the general public to increase knowledge and
awareness about coastal issues.

These are just some of the examples of important public, private and
non-profit partnership efforts NOAA Sea Grant is engaged in to try to
address national and state priorities related to understanding and
managing the nation's ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources.