Marine Sensitivity

Project Documentation

Authors
Affiliations

Benjamin D. Best

Ocean Metrics LLC

Timothy P. White

BOEM’s Office of Environmental Programs

Published

2026-10-16

Preface

Marine Sensitivity Toolkit: species distributions and extinction risk, scored across US ocean waters

The Marine Sensitivity Toolkit (MST) is a cloud-native system developed for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to assess the sensitivity of marine ecosystems to offshore energy development.

It integrates 9,795 species distribution models with extinction risk assessments across US waters (9,597 of which fall within the 20 BOEM Program Areas of the current program cycle).

NoteWhat changed in v4, relative to v3

SWOT sea turtles

Datasets — SWOT sea turtle ranges and NOAA Distinct Population Segment polygons added, replacing the IUCN range as the global mask for all six sea turtle species. Their role is unusual: the DPS polygons carry ESA listing status spatially (Endangered vs Threatened by region), rather than as one scalar per species — the first input to vary extinction risk within a species’ range.

Reported units — Scores are reported on 20 programarea — unchanged from the previous release.

Scope — Turtle distributions become substantially more restrictive, since the IUCN and AquaMaps ranges both extended well beyond where the species actually occur.

Measured against v3: datasets added: rng_turtle_swot_dps; valid species 9,795 → 9,795.

Figure 1: Overview of the MST methodology: species distribution models from the source datasets are merged, weighted by extinction risk scores (incorporating ESA, MMPA, MBTA, and IUCN protections), rescaled by ecoregion, and aggregated to management zones for visualization.

Interactive Apps

  • Composite scores — sensitivity scores by zone, with flower-plot summaries
  • Individual species — individual species distribution models and habitat suitability
  • Your area — outline any place in the Atlas (Places) for the same scores and a downloadable report

All three are the Atlas, which renders any published release: substitute the version in the ?ver= query parameter (e.g. ?ver=v3) to view that one (a restricted pre-release is reached only on the review host, at /{version}/atlas/). Links to the former Scores and Species Shiny apps redirect to it.

  • Scoring walkthrough — step through the scoring pipeline interactively, from input rasters to final scores

Documentation

This book documents the scientific methodology, software infrastructure, and interactive applications that comprise the MST. It is organized in two parts:

  • 5  Science — data sources, taxonomic integration, extinction risk scoring, model merging, and sensitivity scoring methodology
  • 13  Software — server architecture, databases, workflows, APIs, R libraries, and interactive applications

How to Cite

Best, B.D., T.P. White (2026). Marine Sensitivity Toolkit: Project Documentation. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Environmental Studies Program. https://marinesensitivity.org/docs/

Acknowledgments

This work is funded by the BOEM Environmental Studies Program (BOEM-ESP). We thank the data providers whose open datasets make this work possible: AquaMaps, BirdLife International, IUCN Red List, NOAA Fisheries, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.