Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities Portfolio Deliverables
This is a public repository for the Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities Portfolio deliverables. This includes documents and products that are designated as deliverables by the MDBC Portfolio. Documents and products related to the other project teams (MGM, HAE, CPT, and AMP) can be accessed by navigating to the DWH MDBC Portfolio Project Page.
About the MDBC Portfolio [click to display]
In 2016, the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Trustees reached a settlement resulting from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process to resolve BP Exploration and Production’s liability for natural resource injuries caused by the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Part of the settlement requires BP to pay up to $8.8 billion dollars to federal and state trustees for the purposes of restoring natural resources that were injured by the spill, and the services they provided. More details can be found at the Deepwater Horizon NRDA page: A Comprehensive Restoration Plan for the Gulf of Mexico.
The DWH Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group (OO TIG) includes the four federal Trustee agencies: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI); U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The trustees work together to plan and conduct restoration for species injured by the oil spill, including wide-ranging and migratory species. Questions about the OO TIG can be directed to openocean.TIG@noaa.gov. Additional information can be found in the DWH Administrative Record.
Mesophotic and deep benthic communities (MDBC) are vast and complex ecosystems on the ocean floor that are a foundation of Gulf of Mexico food webs. The MDBC portfolio is a suite of four projects selected by the OO TIG to restore MDBC injured by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The four project teams include: Mapping, Ground-truthing, and Predictive Habitat Modeling (MGM), Habitat Assessment and Evaluation (HAE), Coral Propagation Technique Development (CPT), and Active Management and Protection (AMP).