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NOS Strategic Plan
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The National Ocean Service (NOS) plays a critical role in our coastal communities, providing a diverse suite of products and programs that **bolster, protect, and restore** our resources and economy. It appears that your browser doesn't support HTML5 video.
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  In this video message, NOS Assistant Administrator Nicole LeBoeuf shares the NOS Strategic Plan for 2024-2028. Video Transcript  Download the NOS Strategic Plan
 Climate change is transforming the ocean and coastal zones more rapidly than any other place on Earth. Both chronic and episodic changes are placing increasing pressure on fundamentally important economic sectors and population centers, undermining our nation’s resilience and prosperity and  impacting underserved and underrepresented populations already burdened by systemic inequities and injustice. NOS is a trusted and authoritative source of a diverse suite of products and programs that bolster, protect, and restore our natural resources and economy. To provide foundational support for our nation’s resilience in the face of these challenges, NOS is stepping into a larger role relative to filling our nation’s needs for data, products, and services that protect our ecosystems and enhance climate and economic resilience. To meet the challenges facing coastal communities, NOS focuses on four overarching goals: OUR 
      PRIORITIES:
    1
      
    2
      
    3
      
    4

1
      Increase U.S. Coastal ResilienceLearn More

    2
      Make Equity Central to Our MissionLearn More
    3
      Accelerate Growth of Ocean Enterprise and Blue EconomyLearn More

    4
      Conserve, Restore, and Connect Healthy Coastal and Marine EcosystemsLearn More


            1
                    Increase U.S. Coastal Resilience
                            Natural green barriers help protect this Florida coastline and infrastructure from severe storms and floods Source: https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/national-fish-and-wildlife-foundation-and-noaa-announce-new-coastal-resilience-funding
                   
                U.S. coastal communities, home to over 128 million people, are increasingly affected by the accelerating pace of changes in the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes. This number is growing and, as coastal development expands, these communities will be faced with multiple long-term chronic stressors like sea level rise, ocean warming, and marine debris, as well as near-term events such as from the impacts of hurricanes, oil and chemical spills, and harmful algal blooms. Threats and hazards from climate change are further exacerbated by aging, essential infrastructure, from roads and bridges to ports and centers of development — all with the potential to have outsized impacts on our daily lives when located in population and economic centers and/or recreation dependent locations.
                To address these challenges, coastal decision-makers rely on our diverse products and services to assess risks, plan, and take action to increase resilience to these stressors and impacts. NOS will leverage our ability to meet our mission across timescales, enhance predictive capabilities, and focus on place-based partnerships and the unique needs of individual communities within our nation.
         
            

            2
                    Make Equity Central to Our Mission
                            Students investigate a spider conch in Fouha Bay, Guam as part of a monitoring event with the Guam Community Coral Reef Monitoring Program Source: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/podcast/new-strategy-equity-and-environmental-justice-noaa-fisheries

Equity principles underpin what NOS values and how we conduct our mission, guiding our actions today and into the future. We recognize that historically underserved populations have been underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields and disproportionately experience the brunt of impacts from environmental change and degradation.
To ensure our work benefits more communities across the Nation and serves all people fairly and responsibly, NOS will amplify our external-facing efforts to equitably develop and provide our data, products, and services. In parallel, we will look internally to build and sustain a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization accessible to all. To achieve this, NOS will continue to respond to the results of NOAA-led climate and equity assessments and will address barriers to achieving more equitable service delivery and to building a more diverse and inclusive organization.

            

            3
                    Accelerate Growth of the Ocean Enterprise and the Blue Economy
                            The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project is designed to demonstrate a grid-connected, 12-megawatt offshore wind test facility about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. Credit: Stephen Boutwell/BOEM Source: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/economy/wind-energy/welcome.html
           
            The number of U.S. businesses in the fields of ocean measurement, observation, and forecasting increased by almost 60% between 2015 and 2020. This information-focused sector, the Ocean Enterprise, is already informing decision-making across Blue Economy sectors. This includes providing the information needed to help the nation create equitable solutions and ecological sustainability, as well as to develop insights and predictive capabilities that will provide opportunities for climate adaptation and prosperity for society in the face of rapidly changing conditions.

            To accelerate the growth of the U.S. Ocean Enterprise, NOS will utilize our roles as ocean and coastal data collectors, product developers, data disseminators, predictive experts, and as public servants, to help revolutionize the way we interact with the ocean to meet societal needs.

            

            4
                        Conserve, Restore, and Connect Healthy Coastal and Marine Ecosystems
                                Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary at sunset Source: https://olympiccoast.noaa.gov/gallery/
           
            Natural resources and their ecosystem services are essential to our lives and livelihoods. Our  marine and coastal environments and their abundance of resources, both material and cultural, are foundational to our nation’s prosperity and to our heritage. Degradation and alteration of these environments, exacerbated by climate change, now threaten these places and their value across uses. NOS plays a critical role as a steward of the ocean and coasts and in connecting communities to these special places. NOS will apply our scientific understanding, resource management, and foundational observations to mitigate stressors, enhance degraded ecosystems, restore ecosystem services, increase accessibility to historically underserved communities, and provide products and services that facilitate sustainable and equitable use. Our work to conserve and restore these ecosystems will also enhance blue carbon sequestration, provide nature-based solutions to mitigate environmental threats, support fisheries, and sustain communities in the face of climate change.
            
            Video Transcript				
				
Hi, I'm Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator for the National Ocean Service. I am pleased and excited to share with you the new NOS strategic plan.

Coastal communities are facing a myriad of environmental and climate change threats; placing lives, livelihoods and ecosystems at risk. From sea level rise, marine debris, hurricanes and more. Our planet is changing faster in the ocean and along our coasts than anywhere else, requiring innovative and thoughtful solutions to complex challenges. Aging infrastructure and growing coastal populations exacerbate risk to communities. And all of these pressures can have a disproportionate impact on underserved and underrepresented populations.
 
The critical role that NOS plays in support of our coastal communities and the entire nation is needed now more than ever. NOS provides a diverse suite of products and programs that bolster, protect, and restore our natural resources and economy. We produce integral data to ensure safe and efficient maritime transportation and commerce; provide expert scientific support and response to environmental threats; manage marine protected areas; and work directly with regional and local managers to help communities prepare for the future. The services we provide play a critical role in the daily lives of tens of millions of Americans, whether they're taking a vacation at the beach or wearing sneakers that were delivered to the local mall after coming into our country via one of our ports.
 
 Our new strategic plan focuses on meeting our nation's coastal challenges by utilizing the broad expertise across NOS program offices, playing to our strengths and uniting our workforce in common purpose more than ever in the history of the organization. This new plan focuses on four overarching priorities. Within this document are NOS-wide priority pathways and operating principles for leveraging our trusted partnerships and proven expertise to meet increasing demands for what we do across agencies, economic sectors, communities and geographies, including providing leadership on the world stage. Through the priorities and objectives laid out in this document, NOS will remain true to our workforce and our core values as they are the foundation upon which our mission and service to the nation firmly rests.
 
 On behalf of the National Ocean Service, thank you for your interest in and contributions to the development and implementation of our new strategic plan.
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