30x30 in the US

The United Nations has set a goal of protecting 30% of the world's oceans by 2030 as a last-ditch effort to protect the ecosystems under the sea. In agreement with this goal, some members of the United States government have laid out a similar goal of protecting 30% of national lands and oceans by 2030. Currently, 23% of our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is listed as protected to any degree. What would it look like for 30% of our EEZ to be highly protected or "no take" zones?

Currently there are about 1700 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the United States. Many of these are smaller state-run areas along coastal states, but there are also a few in the Great Lakes. The majority of the area contained within US MPAs is among the Pacific Islands. This is in large part due to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument around the northwester Hawaiian Islands, which is the largest Marine Protected area in the world.

Just as these MPAs cover a wide variety of ecosystems and parts of the world they also fall under a wide range of protections. Some of these Marine Protected Areas are designated with no restrictions, while others are no-take—meaning no fishing or harvesting of any kind is permitted. In order to effectively protect our seas, we not only need to designate MPAs but also ensure that these adequately protect the ecosystems and organisms within them. Currently, 18% of the total US EEZ is highly protected (the first three classifications listed in the legend of the map below) with the vast majority of this protection occurring in the Pacific Islands.

For this project, I have focused on the national waters surrounding the contiguous United States (2,449,144 sqkm) to explore what it would look like if 30% of these waters (734,743.2 sqkm) were highly protected. I am not trying to recommend exactly where these new MPAs should be implemented, but just what it would look like if 30% of the US EEZ was protected. I looked at current MPAs that could improve their level of protection as well as where we might be able to place new MPAs based on commercial fishing vessel movement.

What would it look like if 30% of the National Waters surrounding the contiguous United States were fully or highly protected?

The first thing I did was go through the current MPAs and determine how many of them were adequately protected and which ones could feasibly improve their protection level to be highly protected. I viewed an adequate level of protection as being any MPA that prohibited commercial fishing. Some of these also prohibited recreational fishing and some didn't, but as long as commercial fishing was prohibited I considered this a highly protected MPA. By this definition, there are currently 13,915 square kilometers of highly protected MPAs in the national waters of the contiguous US. This would need to be improved to 720,829 square kilometers of highly protected MPAs to reach the 30x30 goal.

To determine which current MPAs could be improved and where new MPAs could be developed to reach this goal of having 30% of our waters protected by 2030 I looked at fishing effort data and fishing vessel transit data for the national waters of the United States. In order to use the fishing effort data to look at hotspots of fishing effort, I merged three separate fishing point datasets in QGIS and then converted this merged dataset into a raster file so that I could view the density of the data to go along with the vessel transit data. I could then look at both of these datasets to identify locations to avoid when strengthening the restrictions in current MPAs as well as when creating new ones.

To supplement the fishing data which showed me areas to avoid when making new MPAs, I found some data on critical habitats for species such as lobster, dolphinfish, and corals to inform key places where I should aim to have more protected areas. Using these two types of data I was able to layout what it might look like if we were to protect 30% of our national waters around the contiguous United States by 2030 and compare that with what we have protected now.

Looking at what having 30% of the National Waters of the Contiguous United States protect would look like provides valuable context for the 30x30 resolution. While this is a significant amount of ocean it doesn't need to have a significant negative impact on fishing efforts or our economic benefits from the oceans. In fact, having more MPAs that are strategically placed may actually improve fishing yields by providing locations for the stock to recover and grow without fishing interference.

Upon looking at this final map it is easy to see how 30% is a significant amount of protected water, but it is also apparent that it would maintain a good amount of water available for fishing. Though it would require lots of governmental support and cooperation as well as many meetings and conversations with local people, stakeholders, and experts it is important for us to protect our oceans to ensure future generations can continue to fish and enjoy the environments within the oceans.

This project is not intended to be a comprehensive exploration of the best locations to create new Marine Protected Areas, nor is it meant to speak to which MPAs should be improved to have 30% of the US national waters highly protected by 2030. This project is merely meant to demonstrate what it could look like if 30% of the oceans were to be protected. In order to fully be able to recommend locations for the creation or improvement of an MPA governments need to make sure that they are in communication with the local communities and stakeholders as many people have an intimate connection with the oceans that could be interrupted by an MPA. As well as getting input from scientists and experts as they can help to identify locations that would be more important to protect than others.

• 30 x 30 » Marine Conservation Institute. (2020). Marine Conservation Institute. https://marine-conservation.org/30x30/
• Cooney, M., Goldstein, M., & Shapiro, E. (2019, June 3). How Marine Protected Areas Help Fisheries and Ocean Ecosystems. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2019/06/03/470585/marine-protected-areas-help-fisheries-ocean-ecosystems/
• THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://sdgs.un.org/goals
• The Goal. (n.d.). American Nature Campaign. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https://www.natureamerica.org/why-30x30
• United States Marine Protection. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2020, from https://mpatlas.org/countries/USA*
• United States (national waters) Marine Protection. (2020, November 5). https://mpatlas.org/countries/USA
• US Department of Commerce, N. O. and A. A. (2020, April 23). Where are marine protected areas located? https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mpaloc.html
• U.S. Maritime Limits & Boundaries. (2020, June 8). https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/data/us-maritime-limits-and-boundaries.html#general-information

The heading photo I took during Stanford@SEA

Fishing Effort: To put together my fishing effort raster dataset I combined three fishing datasets from the  Global Fish Watch  and the  NOAA FRAM data warehouse  (from which I used the Trawl Survey and the Hook & Line Survey).

Fishing Vessel Transit: The commercial fishing vessel transit data I use the "2016 Vessel Transit Counts Fishing" from  Marine Cadastre .

Critical Habitat: The critical habitat data I gathered by combining a few datasets from  Marine Cadastre  ("Coastal Critical Habitat Designations") and from the  Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission .

MPA Outlines: I got the data for the current MPAs from  NOAA .

Marine Boundaries: I digitized the EEZ polygons in the first few maps using the outlines of the US marine limits and boundaries from  Data.gov .