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Managers, stakeholders, and scientists recognize the need for collaborative, transparent, integrated approaches to complex resource management issues, and frameworks to address these complex issues are developing. Through the course of 2019, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council developed a conceptual model of ecosystem linkages and risks for summer flounder, a species of recreational and commercial fisheries importance. The proximal aim of the model was to develop a list of integrated management questions that could be refined and addressed through a future quantitative management strategy evaluation. As such, this conceptual model served as a scoping tool. However, the true value of the conceptual model lays elsewhere: familiarizing resource managers historically focused on single-species management with the potential utility of an ecosystem approach to management. This paper details the goals and development of the conceptual model and situates this process in the broader context of best practices for collaborative open science and scientific reproducibility. Further, it highlights a successful path by which the shift towards ecosystem-based management can be actuated.

Resource managers worldwide are being asked to consider the ecosystem while making management decisions. Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) provides a flexible framework for addressing ecosystem...

When estimating commercial fishing costs, selection bias can impact any model derived from non-census sampling methodologies. In the northeastern United States, commercial fishing operating...

The identification of trends in ecosystem indicators has become a core component of ecosystem approaches to resource management, although oftentimes assumptions of statistical models are not properly accounted for in the reporting process. To explore the limitations of trend analysis of short times series, we applied three common methods of trend detection, including a generalized least squares model selection approach, the Mann–Kendall test, and Mann–Kendall test with trend-free pre-whitening to simulated time series of varying trend and autocorrelation strengths. Our results suggest that the ability to detect trends in time series is hampered by the influence of autocorrelated residuals in short series lengths. While it is known that tests designed to account for autocorrelation will approach nominal rejection rates as series lengths increase, the results of this study indicate biased rejection rates in the presence of even weak autocorrelation for series lengths often encountered in indicators developed for ecosystem-level reporting (N = 10, 20, 30). This work has broad implications for ecosystem-level reporting, where indicator time series are often limited in length, maintain a variety of error structures, and are typically assessed using a single statistical method applied uniformly across all time series.

In the management of natural resources, regulation often induces behavioral responses by resource users that ultimately undermine stated policy objectives. Examples of these unintended consequences have been associated with regulations ranging from the Endangered Species Act to laws governing clean air. In this paper we investigate an unintended behavioral response that can be triggered by conservation measures in multispecies fishery management, which leads to increased targeting of the species the conservation measures are meant to protect. Harvest is subject to stochastic variation, with output partially determined by the probability of encountering species of interest, either due to targeting or avoidance. Given the right conditions, an intertemporal arbitrage opportunity arises due to the fact that by targeting a stock in the current period, the probability of encountering that stock in the next period, when announced conservation measures are implemented, decreases. We present an empirical case study that supports the findings of the theoretical model. The results indicate that, by targeting so called weak stocks, some New England fishermen are willing to trade off increased costs today for increased expected profits in the future. To prevent the potentially harmful effects of this behavioral response, a manager may adopt precautionary provisions at the time a quota reduction is announced, or alternatively allow the industry to bank part of its current season's quota in order to alleviate the consequences of the reduction in the ensuing period. These results highlight the challenge of developing effective conservation strategies.

There has been a proliferation of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) models created and published in recent years. However, the degree of coupling between natural and social systems varies widely across the different coupled models and is often a function of the disciplinary background of the team conducting the research. This manuscript examines models developed for and used by NOAA Fisheries in support of Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in the United States. It provides resource managers and interdisciplinary scientists insights on the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used SES models: end-to-end models, conceptual models, bioeconomic models, management strategy evaluations (MSEs), fisher behavior models, integrated social vulnerability models, and regional economic impact models. These model types are not unique to the literature, but allow us to differentiate between one-way coupled models – where outputs from one model are inputs into a second model of another discipline with no feedback to the first model, and two-way coupled models – where there are linkages between the natural and social system models. For a model to provide useful strategic or tactical advice, it should only be coupled to the degree necessary to understand the important dynamics/responses of the system and to create management-relevant performance metrics or potential risks from an (in)action. However, one key finding is to not wait to integrate! This paper highlights the importance of “when” the coupling happens, as timing affects the ability to fully address management questions and multi-sectoral usage conflicts that consider the full SES for EBFM or ecosystem based management (EBM) more generally.

Defining fishing grounds based on data from vessel monitoring systems (VMS) has been a widely researched topic in recent years. Much of the research has focused on filtering algorithms for identifying fishing locations from VMS point data, most often supplemented with either imputed or reported vessel speed information. This study compared the precision of categorizing fishing locations from VMS data either by the most wide-spread “speed rule” approach or by a probability model. Using data from Northeast U.S. Fisheries for fishing years 2010–2014, we showed that the traditional representation of fishing activities as derived by speed rules leads to a severe misrepresentation of fishing grounds for gears other than bottom otter trawl. Predictions based on probability models outperformed gear-specific speed rules in classifying VMS polls for sink gillnet and scallop dredge trips, without adding substantial computational effort. The probability models thus provide the largest improvements in gears with complicated fishing patterns, while controlling for issues such as fleet dynamics that historically have not been dealt with in the static speed rules but which can have significant impacts on the quality of predictions.

Posted price offers and first price auctions, along with the multi-unit discriminatory auction extension, are two widely used mechanisms for allocating conservation contracts. The choice between the two typically hinges on the trade-off between the posted price's simplicity and the potential revenue gains of the auction. In this paper we introduce a novel mechanism that attempts to bridge the gap between the performance of posted price offers and auctions. A two-price and lottery schedule combines the simplicity of the former with some of the flexibility of the latter. Using a model that incorporates agents' cognitive and information costs of bidding, we analyze how the ranking of allocative efficiency and cost-effectiveness between the mechanisms varies as the wedge of participation costs increases. When the number of bidders is endogenously determined by participation costs, bid shading associated with a lack of competition in the auction compromises its cost-effectiveness vis-a-vis the posted price and the lottery schedule. We use data from three recent buybacks for fishing licenses conducted in Maryland to calibrate our model and identify conditions under which the two-price schedule outperforms the other mechanisms.

Many fishers diversify their income by participating in multiple fisheries, which has been shown to significantly reduce year-to-year variation in income. The ability of fishers to diversify has become increasingly constrained in the last few decades, and catch share programs could further reduce diversification as a result of consolidation. This could increase income variation and thus financial risk. However, catch shares can also offer fishers opportunities to enter or increase participation in catch share fisheries by purchasing or leasing quota. Thus, the net effect on diversification is uncertain. We tested whether diversification and variation in fishing revenues changed after implementation of catch shares for 6,782 vessels in 13 US fisheries that account for 20% of US landings revenue. For each of these fisheries, we tested whether diversification levels, trends, and variation in fishing revenues changed after implementation of catch shares, both for fishers that remained in the catch share fishery and for those that exited but remained active in other fisheries. We found that diversification for both groups was nearly always reduced. However, in most cases, we found no significant change in interannual variation of revenues, and, where changes were significant, variation decreased nearly as often as it increased.

Between 2014 and 2016, an interdisciplinary team of researchers including physical oceanographers, biologists, economists and anthropologists developed a working example of an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) for three ecologically distinct regions of the Northwest Atlantic; Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine and the Grand Banks, as part of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS). In this paper, we review the transdisciplinary and collaborative process by which the IEA was developed, with a particular focus on the decision points arising from the IEA construct itself. The aim is to identify key issues faced in developing any IEA, practical decisions made to address these issues within the working group and lessons learned from the process.

As part of their strategy to meet total maximum daily load restrictions in the Chesapeake Bay, managers have developed nutrient trading markets to curb nitrogen and phosphorus flows into the estuarine system. Historically, nutrient trading programs have been restricted to credits between point sources or for agricultural mitigation technologies, such as the planting of cover crops. However, the denitrification and nutrient sequestration associated with oyster reefs has recently been a topic of much biological research. We investigate the role that nutrient credits for ecosystem services provided by restored oyster reefs can play in optimally managing oyster reef complexes by developing a coupled bioeconomic model of oyster reef growth and harvest. Our findings suggest that, along with harvest, the regulating services of denitrification and nutrient sequestration lead to positive net benefits in a majority of scenarios analyzed, although local environmental conditions play a prominent role in the u...

Modeling tools that can demonstrate possible consequences of strategies designed to operationalize ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) should be able to address tradeoffs over a wide suite of considerations representing the scope of marine management objectives. Coupled ecological-economic modeling, where models for ecological and economic subsystems are linked through their inputs and outputs, allows for quantification of such tradeoffs. Here, we link the harvest output from fishery management scenarios implemented in an end-to-end ecosystem model (Atlantis) to an input–output regional economic model for the Northeast United States to calculate changes in socio-economic indicators, including the consequences of management action for regional sales, wages, and employment. We implement three simple scenarios (maintain, decrease, or increase current fishing effort), and compare model-projected values for systematic and sector-specific indicators. Systematic indicators revealed different ecological and economic outcomes, with large ecological responses and clear tradeoffs among the catch and biomass of species groups. Economic indicators for the region responded similarly to fishery yield; however, changes in total sales did not match those in landed catch. Under increased fishing effort, a lower proportional increase in sales relative to total landed catch arose due to increased yield from lower value species groups. Average fisheries income changed little among scenarios, but was highest when effort was maintained at current levels, likely a reflection of fleet and catch stability. Our results serve to demonstrate that consequences of management may be felt disproportionately among species through the region and across different fisheries sectors. With our coupled modeling approach of passing Atlantis ecosystem model outputs to an input–output economic model, we were able to assess effects of fisheries management across a broader suite of indicators that have relevance for policymakers across multiple objectives.

Fishery managers worldwide are evaluating methods for incorporating climate, habitat, ecological, social, and economic factors into current operations in order to implement Ecosystem Approaches to Fishery Management (EAFM). While this can seem overwhelming, it is possible to take practical steps towards EAFM implementation that make use of existing information and provide managers with valuable strategic advice. Here, we describe the process used by the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) to develop an ecosystem-level risk assessment, the initial step proposed in their recently adopted EAFM guidance document. The Council first defined five types of Risk Elements (ecological, economic, social, food production, management) and identified which management objectives aligned with each element. Based on an existing ecosystem status report for the region and other existing sources (including expert opinion), potential ecological, social, economic, and management indicators were identified for each risk element. Finally, low, low-moderate, moderate-high, and high risk criteria were defined for each indicator, and the indicator data were used to score each risk element using the criteria. The ultimate outcome is a ranked risk assessment in order to focus on the highest risk issues for further evaluation and mitigation. The risk assessment highlights certain species and certain management issues as posing higher cumulative risks to meeting Council management objectives when considering a broad range of ecological, social, and economic factors. Tabular color coded summaries of risk assessment results will be used by the Council to prioritize further EAFM analyses as well as research plans over the coming five years. As ecosystem reporting and operational EAFM continue to evolve in future years, the Council foresees integrating these efforts so that ecosystem indicators are refined to meet the needs of fishery managers in identifying and managing risks to achieving ecological, social, and economic fishery objectives. Overall, ecosystem indicator-based risk assessment is a method that can be adapted to a wide range of resource management systems and available information, and therefore represent a promising way forward in the implementation of EAFM.

Portfolio management has been suggested as a tool to help implement ecosystem-based fisheries management. The portfolio approach involves the application of financial portfolio theory to multispecies fishery management to account for species interdependencies, uncertainty, and sustainability constraints. By considering covariance among species, this approach allows economic risks and returns to be calculated across varying combinations of stock sizes. Trade-offs between expected aggregate returns and portfolio risk can thus be assessed. We develop a procedure for constructing portfolio models to help implement ecosystem-based fisheries management in the northeastern United States, using harvest data from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Extending the work of Sanchirico et al. (2008), we propose a measure of excessive risk taking, which may be used by managers to monitor signals of nonoptimal harvests. In addition, we conduct portfolio assessments of historical commercial fishing performance ...

In this article, I jointly analyze stated willingness to accept values with revealed auction bids from fishing license buybacks in the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery in order to better understand the link between participation decisions and conservation outcomes. In contrast with theoretical expectations, I find individuals with the lowest willingness to accept participated in these reverse auctions at lower rates than other eligible individuals, all else being equal. This suggests that who bids in an auction plays an important role in the success of conservation outcomes. These results indicate that market design should expand to consider how, and whether, the economic incentives underlying auction participation align with desired conservation outcomes, both within fisheries and in natural resource management more broadly.

Fisheries managers use buybacks to reduce fleet capacity, conserve fish stocks, and accomplish other goals. In 2009, Maryland and Virginia conducted auctions to buy back commercial fishing licenses. The auctions in both States had similar timing, objectives, and target populations. The divergent designs of the auctions, however, provide a case study with which to investigate effective buyback practices. We compare and contrast the market designs used by Maryland and Virginia, and describe how those differing designs influenced the respective outcomes.

Marine ecosystems are characterized by many complex interactions. Fisheries managers face the challenge of maintaining or restoring sustainability for individual living resources which are affected by both ecological and economic interactions with other species, through processes like predation and fishing fleet interactions. These species interactions are further complicated by interactions with habitats that are changing due to both human activities and climate change. Often, fishery management systems designed to promote sustainability of individual resources have few tools or processes that also address interactions between species, fleets, habitat, and climate. Here, we review existing and potential fishery assessment and management information and tools, and we develop a potential framework for addressing interactions in management at the request of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. The structured framework can be used to first prioritize interactions, second specify key questions regarding high priority interactions, and third tailor appropriate analyses to address them. The primary tools for the initial steps in the framework are risk assessment and Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE). Finally, implemented management would be evaluated to ensure that objectives are being met, or to adjust measures as conditions change. In the final section, we outline an example to illustrate how a structured decision making process within the framework could work.