Abstract
In support of New York State’s commitment to incorporating offshore wind into its energy portfolio, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) embarked on a multi-year ultra-high resolution aerial digital survey of marine resources in a 43,745.20 km2 (12,754.06 mi2) offshore planning area (OPA) in 2016. The OPA encompasses the waters of the New York Bight from Long Island southeast to the continental shelf break. After approximately 36,238 nautical miles of flights above the potential rotor swept area conducted over twelve seasonal surveys (see Table 1 for timing), the 3.6 million images collected have provided NYSERDA with a stunning baseline of information about the avian and marine wildlife in the OPA. One year after mobilizing the first aerial digital surveys, call areas for wind energy were identified within an Area for Consideration (NYSERDA 2017). The document fulfilled one of the key goals of the New York State Offshore Wind Master Plan and identified a broad area of the OPA with generally lower densities of marine biota, as well as some areas for consideration which were generated using a combined assessment of multi-stakeholder interests in addition to available information of biological activity. A further two years of seasonal aerial digital surveys have since been completed. This report summarizes the results of the twelve aerial digital surveys conducted on behalf of NYSERDA during summer 2016 through spring 2019 and provides an overview of how these empirical data compare with the modeled distribution and density information presented in NYSERDA (2017). This aerial digital summary report supports a larger five-volume report that describes in detail the methods used to collect and analyze the data collected during these surveys and provides information on temporal and distribution patterns for each taxon. Whereas this summary reports general patterns of distributions and densities, greater resolution of temporal patterns of activity are available in the relevant volumes of the final report. Results of the high-resolution aerial digital survey reveal a diverse and dynamic biota that varies between seasons but exhibits repeatable spatial distributions. These data provide important support for the development of offshore wind in the OPA, confirming that the proposed call areas for wind energy identified in NYSERDA’s Area for Consideration for the Potential Locating of Offshore Wind Energy Areas (NYSERDA 2017) are in areas with lower abundances of marine and avian resources.