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The NWFSC Scientific Publications Database serves as an archival repository of NWFSC-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, technical memorandums, reports, or other information authored or co-authored by NWFSC or funded partners. As a repository, the SPD retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.

NOAA Fisheries Northwest Science Center Publication Details

CitationFeist, B.E., Griffin, R., Samhouri, J.F., Riekkola, L., Shelton, A.O., Chen, Y.A., Somers, K., Andrews, K., Liu, O.R. & Ise, J. (2025) Mapping the value of commercial fishing and potential costs of offshore wind energy on the U.S: West Coast: Towards an assessment of resource use tradeoffs. PLOS One, 20, e0315319. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/citation?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315319 (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/citation?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315319)
TitleMapping the value of commercial fishing and potential costs of offshore wind energy on the U.S: West Coast: Towards an assessment of resource use tradeoffs
Publication Year2025
Volume20
Pagese0315319
Keywordsresource use, fisheries management, offshore wind, marine spatial planning, economics
AbstractThe West Coast of the U.S. has a vast offshore wind energy (OWE) electricity generation potential with value on the order of billions of USD, and pressure is mounting to develop large OWE projects. However, this seascape has numerous existing resource extraction uses, including a multi-billion dollar commercial fishing industry, which create the potential for conflict. To date, spatially explicit comparisons of OWE and commercial fisheries value have not been done, which are essential for marine spatial planning and for investigating the tradeoffs of OWE development on existing marine uses. In this analysis, we generate maps of OWE levelized cost of energy and of total economic activity generated by the top eight commercial fishing targets that account for the vast majority (~84%) of landed revenue off the U.S. West Coast. We quantify spatial overlap between these two ocean uses and use multiobjective optimization to develop tradeoff frontiers to investigate implications for both secto
Official CitationFeist, B.E., Griffin, R., Samhouri, J.F., Riekkola, L., Shelton, A.O., Chen, Y.A., Somers, K., Andrews, K., Liu, O.R. & Ise, J. (2025) Mapping the value of commercial fishing and potential costs of offshore wind energy on the U.S: West Coast: Towards an assessment of resource use tradeoffs. PLOS One, 20, e0315319. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/citation?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315319
Links (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/citation?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315319)