NOAA Harmful Algal Bloom Liaison for OAR, NOS and NESDIS

The seven Sea Grant programs listed above envision a “NOAA HAB Liaison” to help manage and mitigate a significant, growing and immediate environmental, economic and health crisis facing our coasts. HABs are an example of a quintessential phenomenon that crosscuts the national focus areas and affects not only coastal residents but also tourists located across the country and around the world. This position and programming will coordinate HAB communications and the development of new data-driven HAB communication tools among three NOAA line offices (OAR, NOS, and NESDIS) to better serve decision-making end users tasked with addressing this growing concern. Our two federal partners – NCCOS and CoastWatch – are complemented with five regional IOOS’ and several other state agencies, Sea Grant programs, and eNGOs; programming will serve all of them. The overall project will be managed through both an advisory committee and points of contact that will help develop a new Community of Practice (CoP) to leverage HAB expertise with the networking and facilitation skills of agents around the country. The CoP will ensure the benefits of the network will be maintained over time and hopefully grow to include more programs.