An integrated ecosystem assessment success story (in progress)
Diverse stakeholders agreed that an ecosystem approach was necessary. Developing and implementing an ecosystem approach to fishery management was done in collaboration between managers, stakeholders, and scientists.
Outline
Why did managers decide to invest in an ecosystem approach?
How did they develop their approach?
Why risk assessment first?
How did they develop the risk assessment?
How are they using the risk assessment? What's next?
Integrated Ecosystem Assessment
Fishery management in the US
Eight regional Fishery Management Councils establish plans for sustainable management of stocks within their jurisdictions. All are governed by the same law, but tailor management to their regional stakeholder needs.
More information: http://www.fisherycouncils.org/ https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/laws-policies#magnuson-stevens-act
Why an ecosystem approach?
"We rebuilt all the stocks, so why is everyone still pissed off?" --Rich Seagraves
in 2011, the Council asked:
And many people answered, from commercial fishery, recreational fishery, environmental organization, and interested public perspectives.
Visioning report:
http://www.mafmc.org/s/MAFMC-stakeholder-input-report-p7b9.pdf
How did they develop their ecosystem approach?
Visioning Project → Strategic Plan with one objective to develop
"A non-regulatory umbrella document intended to guide Council policy with respect to ecosystem considerations across existing Fishery Management Plans"
Details, including workshop presentations and white papers: http://www.mafmc.org/eafm
Mid-Atlantic Council Ecosystem Approach
2016 Ecosystem Approach to Fishery Management (EAFM) Policy Guidance document: http://www.mafmc.org/s/EAFM-Doc-Revised-2019-02-08.pdf
Mid-Atlantic EAFM framework1:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2016.00105/full
[1] Gaichas, S., Seagraves, R., Coakley, J., DePiper, G., Guida, V., Hare, J., Rago, P., et al. 2016. A Framework for Incorporating Species, Fleet, Habitat, and Climate Interactions into Fishery Management. Frontiers in Marine Science, 3.
Examples illustrating the use of the framework
Risk assessment highlights prority species/issues for more detailed evaluation
A conceptual model maps out key interactions for high risk fisheries, specifies quantitative management strategy evaluation
Examples illustrating the use of the framework
Risk assessment highlights prority species/issues for more detailed evaluation
A conceptual model maps out key interactions for high risk fisheries, specifies quantitative management strategy evaluation
Why risk assessment?
Common framework across industry, science, business; but methods matter. Assessing the risks correctly is essential to good decision making.
Meanwhile, scientists were improving ecosystem reports:
"So what?" --John Boreman, September 2016
Clear linkage of ecosystem indicators with management objectives
Synthesis across indicators for big picture
Objectives related to human-well being placed first in report
Short (< 30 pages), non-technical (but rigorous) text
Emphasis on reproducibility
Standardized indicator visualization in reports
Status (short-term) and trend (long-term) of components are measured as indicators and plotted in a standardized way
Indicators are selected to
Be broadly informative about a component in a management context1-3
Minimize redundancy of information
Be responsive to ecosystem change
[1] Rice J. C.Rochet M. J. "A framework for selecting a suite of indicators for fisheries management." ICES Journal of Marine Science 62 (2005): 516–527.
[2] Link J. 2010. Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management: Confronting Tradeoffs . Cambridge University Press, New York.
[3] Zador, Stephani G., et al. "Ecosystem considerations in Alaska: the value of qualitative assessments." ICES Journal of Marine Science 74.1 (2017): 421-430.
Indicator spatial scales--already Mid-Atlantic specific
Risk assessent indicators and ranking criteria: Commercial revenue
This element is applied at the ecosystem level. Revenue serves as a proxy for commercial profits.
| Risk Level | Definition |
|---|---|
| Low | No trend and low variability in revenue |
| Low-Moderate | Increasing or high variability in revenue |
| Moderate-High | Significant long term revenue decrease |
| High | Significant recent decrease in revenue |
Ranked moderate-high risk due to the significant long term revenue decrease for Mid-Atlantic managed species (red points in top plot)
Risk assessent indicators and ranking criteria: System productivity
Ranked low-moderate risk due to the significant long term trends in zooplankton abundance for major species (top right plot)
Risk assessent indicators and ranking criteria: Climate
This element is applied at the species level. Risks to species productivity (and therefore to achieving optimum yield) due to projected climate change in the Northeast US were evaluated in a comprehensive assessment1.
| Risk Level | Definition |
|---|---|
| Low | Low climate vulnerability ranking |
| Low-Moderate | Moderate climate vulnerability ranking |
| Moderate-High | High climate vulnerability ranking |
| High | Very high climate vulnerability ranking |
[1] Hare, J. A., Morrison, W. E., Nelson, M. W., Stachura, M. M., Teeters, E. J., Griffis, R. B., Alexander, M. A., et al. 2016. A Vulnerability Assessment of Fish and Invertebrates to Climate Change on the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf. PLOS ONE, 11: e0146756.
Each species ranked according to position/color in the plot on the right
Risk assessment results, 2017-2018
Species level risk summary
Ecosystem level risk summary
Risk assessment results, 2017-2018 (and 2019)
Species and Sector level risk elements
EAFM risk assessment update 2019
Species level risk elements
Ecosystem level risk elements
How are they using the risk assessment? What's next?
- Based on risk assessment, the Council selected summer flounder as high-risk fishery for conceptual modeling
Working group of habitat, biology, stock assessment, management, economic and social scientists are now developing:
- draft conceptual models of high risk elements, linkages
- dataset identification and gap analysis for each element and link
- draft questions that the Council could persue with additional work
Mid-Atlantic Council ecosystem approach continued...
- The late 2018 summer flounder conceptual model, now under construction:
Final conceptual modeling to be done by late 2019
Council may then elect to proceed with management strategy evaluation (MSE) using the information from conceptual modeling as a basis
Footnote: Improvements to reproducibility and provenance
- Reporting the information is not enough
- Managers appreciate the concise format, but back-end critical for describing collection, analyses, and processing
- Streamlined workflow allowed scientists to meet management deadlines
Contributors - THANK YOU!
The New England and Mid-Atlantic Ecosystem reports made possible by (at least) 38 contributors from 8 institutions
Donald Anderson (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)
Amani Bassyouni (Virginia Department of Health)
Lisa Calvo (Rutgers)
Matthew Camisa (MA Division of Marine Fisheries)
Patricia Clay
Lisa Colburn
Geret DePiper
Deb Duarte
Michael Fogarty
Paula Fratantoni
Kevin Friedland
Sarah Gaichas
James Gartland (Virginia Institute of Marine Science)
Heather Haas
Sean Hardison
Kimberly Hyde
Terry Joyce (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)
John Kosik
Steve Kress (National Audubon Society)
Scott Large
Don Lyons (National Audubon Society)
Loren Kellogg
David Kulis (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)
Sean Lucey
Chris Melrose
Ryan Morse
Kimberly Murray
Chris Orphanides
Richard Pace
Charles Perretti
Karl Roscher (Maryland Department of Natural Resources)
Vincent Saba
Laurel Smith
Mark Terceiro
John Walden
Harvey Walsh
Mark Wuenschel
Qian Zhang (Unversity of Maryland and US EPA Chesapeake Bay Program)
