The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has dedicated USD 148 million (EUR 141 million) to improving NOAA’s data collection and analysis to support “climate-ready fisheries.”
The money will be used to modernize the agency’s science enterprise, providing the tools and information necessary to help the nation’s fisheries adapt to rapidly changing marine ecosystems.
“The climate crisis means warming oceans, rising sea levels, diminishing sea ice and increasing acidification –all profoundly impacting coastal ecosystems and every aspect of NOAA's mission,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit said in a statement. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to advance our scientific understanding of our rapidly changing ocean and deliver critical information to communities that depend on healthy marine ecosystems.”
The bulk of the funding – USD 108 million (EUR 103 million) – will be used to help NOAA Fisheries improve its fish and marine mammal stock assessments by taking into account the effects of climate change. The agency said the funding will help it incorporate technologies such as uncrewed systems, remote sensing, and environmental DNA collection to advance its efforts.
The remaining USD 40 million (EUR 38 million) will go toward NOAA’s Climate, Ecosystems, and Fisheries Initiative, which will “establish an operational decision-support system to track changes in marine ecosystems and assess risks to valuable resources and the communities who depend on them.”
The initiative will also provide resource managers and fishing communities with better information to adapt to changing climate and ocean conditions and bolster their resilience to those changes. Those efforts will enhance regional capacity for forecasting future conditions, evaluating the risks those changes may bring, and provide actionable advice to resource managers.
The funding for the investment comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, a piece of legislation passed in 2022 that provided USD 3.3 billion (EUR 3.1 billion) to NOAA for climate resiliency projects and initiatives.
“This funding, made possible thanks to President Biden’s historic Inflation Reduction Act, will make our nation’s fisheries, protected species, and coastal communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. “By strengthening NOAA’s scientific efforts to help us better understand and plan for changing marine conditions, we are making smart investments in the economic and climate resilience of communities across our entire country.”
