IAI has completed two major social science research projects in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The most recent effort was completed in 2006 in association with the NOAA Fisheries effort to identify and characterize fishing-oriented communities across the nation as specified through National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act (as Amended through January 2007). The 2006 study also examined the preliminary social effects of the then-recently established Marine Conversation District (MCD) south of St. Thomas. A similar project was completed by the firm during the late 1990s in order to provide the Caribbean Fishery Management Council with information it and NOAA Fisheries needed to anticipate and plan for initial social, economic, and fisheries-specific impacts of an MCD to be sited south of the island of St. John.