2.0 INVITED PRESENTATIONS 



2.1 An Introduction to Changing Management Needs 



It was the purpose of this section to introduce to the participants both the specific topics for technical input and 

 a general sense of the management needs which MMS must fulfill through its studies. The tasks facing MMS are 

 presented from three perspectives, the national-level planner, the regional studies chief, and the contracting 

 officer's technical representative. Across these three perspectives there is an evolution in the view taken from 

 the broadly generic to the highly specific task details. From the generic national view, MMS management is 

 faced with designing a program structure to meet changing national needs and concerns on any coast effectively 

 and efficiently. From the regional view, the primary task is the design, scoping, and contracting of highly specific 

 project components with direct management value in the Gulf of Mexico. 



The studies that are carried out as a result of this workshop will be among the first to reflect the changing 

 generic emphasis within the MMS Environmental Studies Program (ESP). As such, there is an added complexity 

 to the task of study design. This complexity arises from the difficulty in taking some of the generic changes 

 outlined in sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 and translating them into the three specific field tasks outlined in section 2.1.3 

 through 2.1.5. This difficulty is most readily apparent with respect to monitoring for long-term, low-level 

 cumulative impacts and the development of process studies to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms 

 causing the observed impacts. 



No matter how conceptually obvious it is that long-term and ecosystem level studies will ultimately improve 

 MMS' ability to predict or avoid impacts, it is less obvious in practice how to design real studies which will meet 

 management needs. In the coastal ocean, studying and fully understanding the processes of change are complex 

 tasks not yet successfully completed on the scales required by MMS' information needs. Indeed, the 

 oceanographers who study such processes are still at that unrefined phase of science in which new ideas are still 

 being explored. 



The three proposed studies were: 



Texas-Louisiana Shelf Marine Ecosystems Program - an ecological characterization study, including both 

 descriptive and processes components to complement currently available information; to be conducted 

 on the TEXLA Shelf. 



Long-Term Monitoring at Marine Ecosystem Sites - a program to study natural variability over the long- 

 term at representative non-impacted sites; to be conducted at selected sites Gulf-wide. 



Effects of OCS Development and Production Activities - a program to study the chronic and cumulative 

 impacts of OCS oil and gas activities at selected industry sites, with particular emphasis on sites of 

 petroleum development and throughout the Gulf where a history of OCS petroleum development exists 

 (primarily on the TEXLA Shelf, but also on the Mississippi-Alabama Shelf). 



