Fig 1.
Overlap of historical cumulative fishing footprints (1994-2020) with proposed offshore wind energy areas (black outlines, [49–50];
https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/Oregon, https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/California) for three groundfish trawl fisheries that deliver catches to respective ports (colored squares) across the U.S. West Coast. Footprints represent the top 75% volume contour of all landed catch by weight. Wind energy planning areas from north to south are: Coos Bay Call Area, Brookings Call Area, Humboldt Wind Energy Area and Morro Bay Wind Energy Area. Coastal outline created using Natural Earth.
Table 1.
Summary statistics and relative risk levels for three groundfish fishing fleets in each IO-PAC port group that operated within proposed offshore wind energy areas (OWEAs) between 1994-2020. “DTS” = groundfish bottom trawl fishery targeting dover sole, thornyheads and sablefish; “nDTS” = groundfish bottom trawl fishery targeting non-DTS groundfish species; “MDT” = midwater trawl fishery targeting widow and yellowtail rockfish; “OWEA landings” = landings removed from areas within proposed OWEAs. All other column variables are relative to the operation of the entire fishery, regardless of overlap with OWEAs. All metrics, with the exception of “Relative risk”, were based on individual fishing events and their geocoordinates in the logbook and fish ticket data, while “Relative risk” integrates information from both individual fishing events (e.g., sensitivity component of the vulnerability axis) and estimated fishing footprints (e.g., exposure axis and the adaptive capacity component of the vulnerability axis). Relative risk has a maximum possible value of ~1.7.
Fig 2.
Exposure: annual proportional area of overlap between fishing footprints and proposed offshore wind energy areas (OWEAs) for each of three groundfish trawl fisheries (rows) and their respective ports of landing (columns).
Dashed lines = mean values across all years (1994-2020). Proportional values of 0 = fishery operated but had no overlap with OWEAs. Some year-fishery-port group values have been removed from the figure due to confidentiality requirements (years with #’s in the plot rug; 17 DTS, 11 non-DTS and 31 midwater trawl values), leading to differences with Table 1, but all values were included in the mean calculations (dashed lines) shown here.
Fig 3.
± SD) fishing site fidelity across all annual fishing footprint combinations (1994-2020) for each fishing fleet that overlapped with proposed offshore wind energy areas (OWEAs). Values along the x-axis show the number of years the fishing fleet operated (regardless of overlap with proposed OWEAs) and the number of years of data used to calculate fishing site fidelity.
Fig 4.
± SD) proportion of targeted-species landings by weight harvested from within proposed offshore wind energy areas (OWEAs) from 1994 to 2020 for each of three groundfish trawl sub-fisheries and their respective port of landing. Values along the x-axis show the number of years the fishing fleet operated (regardless of overlap with proposed OWEAs) and the number of years of data used to calculate sensitivity.
Fig 5.
Relative levels of risk to the potential displacement from historical fishing grounds due to the siting of offshore wind energy developments for three groundfish trawl fisheries and their respective port groups.
The Exposure axis is the mean (± SD) proportional spatial overlap of annual fishing footprints (1994-2020; Fig 2) with proposed offshore wind energy areas. The Vulnerability axis is the mean (± SD) Euclidean distance calculated from respective adaptive capacity (Fig 3) and mean sensitivity (Fig 4) values.
Fig 6.
Proposed offshore wind energy Call Areas in Oregon and Wind Energy Areas in California (black outlines, [49–50];
https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/Oregon, https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/California), cumulative fishing footprints calculated from commercial landings from 1994 to 2020 (red outlines), and the average percent change in projected biomass index of targeted species (gridded heatmap) for three example fishing fleets. Changes in biomass index values are differences between the average from 2050-2100 compared to a baseline of 2020. Red squares = respective port group location. Coastal outline created using Natural Earth.
Fig 7.
Projected mean (points) and SE (shading) of biomass index for target species (5-yr running average; thick lines) within portions of each fleet’s historical fishing footprints (1994-2020) that were inside or outside the boundaries of proposed offshore wind energy areas (OWEAs).
The biomass index (kg/km2) for each fleet was calculated from species distribution models fitted to catch-per-unit-effort data collected by the Northwest Fisheries Science Center’s groundfish bottom trawl survey (2003-2010; [26]).
Fig 8.
±SE) of projected biomass index values inside compared to outside proposed offshore wind energy areas (OWEAs) for each fishing fleet. Values > 1 represent years when the average biomass index from areas of historical fishing footprints inside OWEAs was projected to be greater than areas outside OWEAs.