This week, during National Preparedness Month, OR&R is taking a closer look at some of the disaster response roles our office and its partners serve in being prepared for both natural and human-caused disasters. In today’s blog, learn more about why disaster preparedness is important, what the National Ocean Service does to prepare, and some tips for how you can prepare.

Here at OR&R, we develop scientific solutions to help keep the coasts clean from oil, chemicals, marine debris, and other forms of marine pollution. During Pollution Prevention Week, we’re asking the question, “What can you do to prevent marine pollution?”

Every month our Emergency Response Division provides scientific expertise and services to the U.S. Coast Guard on everything from running oil spill trajectories to model where the spill may spread, to possible effects on wildlife and fisheries and estimates on how long the oil may stay in the environment.

This month OR&R responded to 10 incidents, including oil discharges, sunken vessels, and other pollution-related incidents.  

Here are some of August’s notable incidents:

Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) are small, ice-affiliated forage fish, that can make up more than 80% of all living fish in Arctic waters. Arctic cod have a circumpolar distribution that includes the Chukchi, Beaufort, and Bering seas in the Alaskan Arctic, and are a critical link in Arctic food webs. 

This keystone Arctic species is also particularly vulnerable to oil spills, which was the focus of a new study titled “Embryonic crude oil exposure impairs growth and lipid allocation in a keystone Arctic forage fish.”

This feature is part of a monthly series profiling scientists and technicians who provide exemplary contributions to the mission of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R). This month’s featured scientist is Caitlin Wessel, OR&R Marine Debris Program regional coordinator for the Gulf of Mexico.

Working under NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, 2019 Hollings scholar Leah Moore spent her summer working on the story map “Building a Resilient Community: NOAA’s Hazard Exposure and Risk Exploration (HERE) Tool” — a publicly available link will be available later this summer.

During National Water Quality Month, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration shares some of the ways we preserve and improve water quality through cleanup and restoration. 

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration develops scientific solutions to keep the coasts clean from threats of oil, hazardous waste, and marine debris — all of which are major pollutants that can hugely affect the water quality of our coastal natural resources. 

NOAA Ocean Podcast: Episode 28

In this episode, Kate Wheelock, Chief of NOAA’s Disaster Preparedness Program, explains how her team facilitates internal communication, coordination, and preparation for all types of unforeseen disasters.