The Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources (SMMR) Network is excited to host another free Lunchtime Webinar!

This month Lorna McKellar, Doctoral Researcher at the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University will give an insight into:

Setting thresholds for good status in marine ecosystem management

Values which distinguish between good and not good ecosystem states, or ‘thresholds’, are required under international marine management legislation to assess the condition of marine areas and evaluate progress towards achieving biodiversity objectives. There are numerous methods being used to estimate thresholds which can result in inconsistent interpretations of what is defined as ‘good’. Simultaneously, despite a range of methods being available, there are a lack of thresholds in place for many ecosystem components, which means that full ecosystem assessments are often not completed. A framework for setting reliable, accurate thresholds, consistently across different marine indicators and robustly in the face of limited data, is needed to fill these gaps.

To inform this framework, the statistical robustness of four methods for setting thresholds for good status were evaluated using simulated indicator data, to determine the impact of limited data on thresholds using different methods. The most statistically robust and reliable methods for setting thresholds were carried forward and applied to empirical datasets to estimate thresholds and outline an approach for determining the probability of a system being in good status for different marine systems, using minimally impacted reference conditions. Finally, a structured expert elicitation approach (IDEA protocol) was used to determine how expert opinion could be used in a structured format to estimate thresholds for good status and evaluate the robustness of this method in place of quantitative approaches. Outlining clear approaches for estimating thresholds for good status, along with the assumptions as to how they define ‘good’, will aid consistent, reliable, and robust setting of thresholds for good status to inform environmental objectives under marine management legislation.

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