Tethys: Developing a commons for understanding environmental effects of ocean renewable energy Andrea Copping a,⇑ , Courtney Smith b , Luke Hanna a , Hoyt Battey b , Jonathan Whiting a , Michael Reed b , Jocelyn Brown-Saracino c , Patrick Gilman b , Meghan Massaua c a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 1100 Dexter Ave N. Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98109, USA b Wind and Water Power Technologies Office, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave NW, Washington, DC 20585, USA c New West Technologies, LLC, 901 D Street SW Suite 910, Washington, DC 20024, USA article info Keywords: Tethys Annex IV Environmental effects Marine energy development Offshore wind Data sharing abstract A lack of consistent widespread information on potential environ- mental effects, monitoring outcomes, and mitigation strategies continues to hinder the development and deployment of marine energy systems around the world. To address this need, member nations of the Ocean Energy Systems (OES) formed Annex IV, a three-year collaborative effort (2010–2013) to increase knowledge sharing, research collaborations, and efficient regulatory decision- making associated with investigating and evaluating the potential impacts of wave and tidal energy. In parallel, the US Department of Energy began development of a publically-available, searchable online database of environmental information (called Tethys), housing scientific literature pertaining to the environmental effects of marine energy and offshore wind systems, as well as metadata on international ocean energy projects and research studies col- lected under Annex IV. In addition to providing broad access to information on environmental effects of marine energy and off- shore wind developments, Tethys can act as a commons for bring- ing together researchers, device and project developers, regulators, and stakeholders, to explore shared interests and information needs for the emerging marine energy industry. This paper will demonstrate the development, existing functionality, and content 2214-1669/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijome.2013.11.004 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 206 528 3049. E-mail addresses: andrea.copping@pnnl.gov (A. Copping), courtney.smith@ee.doe.gov (C. Smith), luke.hanna@pnnl.gov (L. Hanna), hoyt.battey@ee.doe.gov (H. Battey), jonathan.whiting@pnnl.gov (J. Whiting), michael.reed@ee.doe.gov (M. Reed), jocelyn.brown-saracino@ee.doe.gov (J. Brown-Saracino), Patrick.Gilman@go.doe.gov (P. Gilman), meghan.massaua@ee.doe.gov (M. Massaua). International Journal of Marine Energy 3–4 (2013) 41–51 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Marine Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijome