The world's marine ecosystems are facing an increasing number of challenges. Fishing intensity is high, and there are several other risks such as possible oil spills from drilling and transportation, climate change, eutrophication, and risks associated with aquaculture. The aggregate analysis of multiple interacting risk factors is a challenging task for scientists. While risk assessment methods are well established in scientific areas like finance, health, and insurance, they are less so in areas like resource management, and climate change.
The ICES/PICES Symposium on "Ecological Basis of Risk Analysis for Marine Ecosystems", to be held 2-4 June 2014, in Porvoo, Finland, will tackle this challenge. The symposium will explore how science can identify and quantify uncertainty, and develop methods to better deal with this uncertainty so that resource management may be more effective.
"If scientists leave out some risk factors from scientific advice, the overall risk associated with implementing this advice - or achieving its desired outcomes - may be underestimated. Moreover, it is important to identify which factors can be effectively managed and which can only be taken into account. For example, weather variability cannot be managed by any tools, but there are many approaches in fisheries management that can be used to manage multiple risks," says symposium co-convener, Professor Sakari Kuikka from the University of Helsinki.
Abstract submission for the symposium is open until 28 February 2014.
The symposium is organized jointly by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), and the FB ECOKNOWS project (Effective use of ecosystem and biological knowledge in fisheries). Visit the symposium website for more information.
