Earth Observations Enable Cost-Effective Conservation of Eastern North Pacific Blue Whales (Balaenoptera musculus)

Abstract:

National and international organizations are placing greater emphasis on the socioeconomic benefits that are derived from Earth observations, and a growing literature is establishing links between these applications with direct societal benefits. However, the value of Earth observations in marine conservation is unclear, despite their evident contribution to understanding human and natural systems. Costs of data-driven regulations to conserve marine species suggest opportunities to assess the value of Earth observations. Specifically, regulations to limit the impact of ship strikes—interactions of marine shipping and marine mammals that may be fatal to the latter—offer a critical case study in dynamic management built on Earth observations. We conduct a retrospective analysis to estimate the value of information (VOI) of Earth observations for prospective regulation of marine shipping to conserve Eastern North Pacific blue whales in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States. Outcomes are driven by differences across two data products. In the reference case, vessel speed limits depend on species distribution data from shipboard surveys. In the counterfactual case, vessel speed limits depend species distributions predicted by WhaleWatch, a federal data product incorporating information from several remote sensing technologies: Argos satellite transmitters and sensors including AVHRR, AMSR, MODIS-Aqua, Topex/Poseidon, ERS, Geosat, GFO, Envisat, Jason, and SeaWnds/QuikSCAT. The VOI is identified as the difference in costs to marine shipping operators under the reference and counterfactual cases for regulation of vessel speeds. We estimate that the annual VOI of WhaleWatch ranges from US$0.3 billion to US$1.1 billion, depending on the conservation goals of the modeled regulation. Conserving more blue whales—averting more ship strikes—increases the VOI. This case study establishes methods to value Earth observations applied to estimate distributions of marine species at risk of ship strikes.