April 4, 2014 — NOAA and its partners recently released the first federal strategic plan to guide research and monitoring investments that will improve our understanding of ocean acidification, its potential impacts on marine species and ecosystems, and adaptation and mitigation strategies.
“Maintaining healthy marine ecosystems in the face of ocean acidification is one of the top natural resource challenges of this century,” said Robert Detrick, assistant administrator of the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. “As today’s strategic research plan demonstrates, NOAA and our federal partners are collaborating to meet the challenge of ocean acidification with coordinated and comprehensive research programmes.”
The plan was developed by the Interagency Working Group on Ocean Acidification, which brings together scientists from NOAA, the National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Department of Agriculture, Department of State, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S. Navy. Congress called for the Interagency Working Group and charged it with developing a strategic plan to guide research and monitoring of ocean acidification as part of the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009 (FOARAM Act). The plan is also a necessary early step towards successful implementation of the National Ocean Policy.