WARWICK — Faced with increasingly numerous proposals to develop wind- and wave-energy generators offshore, a consortium of ocean scientists and policy experts unveiled unprecedented work here Monday to better plan for future business and conservation projects in 140,745 square miles of coastal waters from Canada to Cape Hatteras.

They pointed to current efforts by Rhode Island and Massachusetts to map their coastal waters for potential wind farms as being models for the nation. But those efforts would be small portions of the so-called marine spatial planning work now under way for waters along the Northeast coast, extending as far as 200 miles out to the edge of the continental shelf.

The consortium is utilizing data from an array of federal and state agencies as well as university and independent scientists to map critical natural resources in coastal waters that need to be protected while new energy projects get launched. The work is being unveiled for local scientists Monday and Tuesday, and it is expected to be available publicly by August.

“We’ve been planning on land for centuries,” said Sally Yozell, who heads up the work for The Nature Conservancy. “My hope is we can figure out some comparable way for the oceans.”

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse attended the briefing and voiced his support for the planning efforts. He said he was including money in current climate-change legislation to pay for more data collection.

Whitehouse said the country needs to develop offshore energy as part of a complete overhaul of its energy strategy, which for too long “has been a captive of the oil and coal industries.”

“Capitol Hill and the boardroom of ExxonMobil are the last islands of doubt about climate change,” Whitehouse said. He said oil companies are outspending environmental advocates 10 to 1 to block the climate-change legislation.

Whitehouse said it was critical to get everyone at the table and using sound science to decide which natural resources need protecting so that energy investment decisions can be done correctly and without unnecessary delays.

The new mapping work is being led by The Nature Conservancy, working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Northeast Regional Ocean Council, a group organized in response to recommendations from President George W. Bush’s oceans commission.

Steve A. Murawski, science director for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the ocean-mapping effort is being done at a great time. He said his new boss, Jane Lubchenko, head of NOAA, is “quite interested in it.”

Murawski said the goal is balancing uses and protection of the oceans.

But he stressed the goal is not zoning of the seas. Zoning, he said, is typically handled by one authoritative agency. Here, information would be provided to an array of agencies involved in decision making.

Bud Ehler, a Paris-based consultant to the United Nations who helped moderate the Warwick meeting, said he has seen marine mapping become commonplace in Australia, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“We’ve been watching from Paris and wondering when the slumbering giant was going to wake up,” he said. “We’re gratified to see the U.S. is finally picking up steam.”

For more information on marine assessments the Conservancy has completed elsewhere, go to www.nature.org/initiatives/marine/strategies/assessments.html.

plord@projo.com