The Workshop to quality assure methods to incorporate environmental factors and quantifying
ecological considerations in Management Strategy Evaluation tools (WKEcoMSE) will work to provide a powerful set of tools for scientists to develop harvest control
options that align with management objectives. Most commonly conducted as single-species
analyses, MSEs can also address mixed fisheries objectives by using multi-stock and multi-fleet
operating models.
The EU project, SEAwise, endeavours to develop such multi-stock multi-species
models further so that they can be used to define and evaluate fisheries management strategies that
address broad Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) objectives, including identifying HCRs
that are robust to changes in productivity.
As such, a key deliverable of this workshop is to develop robust and consistent environment productivity relationships for commercial stocks across selected case studies, which potentially can
be integrated in models used by ICES and the SEAwise project.
The methods put forward in the
workshop will be peer-reviewed to ensure that they are scientifically robust and fit-for-purpose for
the advisory frameworks, policy, and management needs in FAO areas 27 and 37 (the ICES area (i.e.
North Atlantic) and the Mediterranean Sea).
Terms of reference
- Methods for consideration by the WK will be proposed by workshop participants, including those methods specifically examined by the SEAwise project.
- Review the proposed methods regarding their capacity to incorporate the impact of environmental factors on the productivity of commercial stocks in the Fisheries Management Strategy Evaluation tools.
- Evaluate the guidelines for each of the different processes controlling productivity, i.e. recruitment, growth and maturity, and survival, including: a. the biological and environmental datasets to be used and potential pre-processing procedures; b. the statistical models to use; c. methods and metrics to assess the predictive capacity of the statistical models developed; and, d. procedures to assess the uncertainty added to the considered management tool.
- Review the proposed approaches and make recommendations to end users on whether the studied environment-productivity relationships should be considered or not. Recommend alternative, more generic approaches if the targeted approach is inconclusive.
