Marine Animal Ranging Assessment Model Barents Sea

Offentlig prosjektsammendrag

Risk assessments are necessary in the planning of oil and gas activities. Such assessments commonly involve impact evaluation of underwater sounds from seismic surveys, oil spills or other impacts on marine life. A special challenge for the impact analysis are free ranging animals such as whales and seabirds. They move in complex patterns that depend on a large number of external factors, such as oceanic currents. Different from conventional assessments, MARAMBS takes into account a more dynamic animal mode by evaluating how movement patterns of marine animals relate to oceanographic variables and human impacts. Decision makers and other non-experts can readily understand the visual MARAMBS results that are available on a web platform. MARAMBS combines dynamic habitat and animal movement modelling, evaluating the relationship between the whereabouts of the animals and external environmental variables. The dynamic habitat model correlates observations of animals with ocean parameters to identify areas of high habitat suitability. The movement modelling, commonly named Agent Based Modeling, simulates the animals' movements based on real observations. The web platform is now available for users. It includes an easy to use interface to visualize the results of the habitat modelling and the agent based modelling. There are routines for downloading data for risk assessments. It is also possible to perform noise and oil spill impact assessments using the tool. A very detailed user guide and full documentation provides background with a special focus on validation of the results. This project was completed together with the The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and the Institute of Marine Research as well as partners from the oil and gas industry.