NC_temp1189: Understanding and managing scale and connectivity in inland and marine fisheries as coupled human and natural systems
(Multistate Research Project)
Status: Draft Project
NC_temp1189: Understanding and managing scale and connectivity in inland and marine fisheries as coupled human and natural systems
Duration: 10/01/2027 to 09/30/2032
Administrative Advisor(s):
NIFA Reps:
Non-Technical Summary
Statement of Issues and Justification
Across the globe, agencies are charged with managing inland and marine fisheries to promote their conservation and sustainable use into the future. In the United States, fisheries are diverse, including large-scale commercial operations in marine environments, large rivers, and large lakes as well as recreational and subsistence fisheries in waterbodies across the country. Some fisheries support state and regional economies, while others directly support livelihoods and food security of rural populations. Agencies, conservation organizations, and intergovernmental bodies charged with managing fisheries operate at a variety of scales (local, regional, global) and have varying responsibilities. Regardless of their scale, all share one common goal: to sustainably manage fisheries to provide a range of benefits to humans and the natural world. To meet this need, intergovernmental organizations and US federal, state, and tribal agencies responsible for the Nation’s fisheries require an understanding of and data on the multi-scale environmental and social influences on fisheries.
Inland and marine fisheries are coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) in which humans and nature are linked via reciprocal interactions that operate at local, regional, and global scales. For example, fish populations are affected by natural factors as well as human users, which produce impacts that, in turn, affect not only those ecosystems, but also the economies associated with them. Human systems impose threats such as over-exploitation, spread of invasive species, disease, changing environmental conditions, and landscape stressors such as urbanization, fragmentation from dams and other barriers, and agriculture . Additionally, due to our globalizing economy, the scales over which fisheries and human systems are connected are expanding and growing in complexity. Given these challenges, and because inland and marine fisheries are central to food security, nutrition, and livelihoods globally, understanding the connections and the scale at which natural and human factors can affect fisheries is essential for their sustainable management and productivity.
The overall goal of this project will be to assess how fisheries function as CHANS, with a specific focus on understanding connectivity among fisheries systems with their natural and human processes over the scales at which they operate to promote their sustainable management and productivity. Our project has four objectives. First, we propose to collect and analyze ecological and/or socioeconomic data to inform understanding of coupled human and natural system dynamics affecting freshwater fisheries at multiple spatial, temporal, and social scales. Second, we will develop and evaluate emerging frameworks that address the complexities of scale and connectivities in CHANS such as telecoupling and metacoupling. Next, we will contextualize these data and frameworks in relation to existing and emerging impacts, threats, needs and opportunities surrounding fisheries resources and management programs, such as food security and invasive species. For our fourth objective, we will work in partnership with state, federal, tribal, NGO, industry and other groups to enhance their capacity to address and collaborate on complex scale and connectivity challenges in CHANS. This proposed research on fisheries as CHANS focuses on multiscale social-ecological interactions rarely studied in fisheries science in the United States. Without this important work to integrate fisheries as CHANS, fisheries managers will not be appropriately equipped to address the diverse social-ecological tradeoffs and complexities that pervade fisheries management and governance. As environmental and human induced stressors (e.g., temperature, dissolved oxygen, land-use alteration, fragmentation, and species invasion) continue to impact fisheries resources, there is a pressing need for research on fisheries as CHANS to address the challenges before us that are simultaneously social and ecological and that require integrated social-ecological solutions.
Applying a CHANS perspective to US fisheries management provides critical insights enabling managers to go beyond identification of proximate threats to fisheries (e.g., land use change, invasive species, over-exploitation) to understand social system processes that generate and shape the magnitude of those threats in the first place. Knowledge of these processes and feedbacks increases managers’ awareness of drivers in the human system, enabling them to account for human and organizational behavior, as well as social, economic, and political context when designing management solutions. Furthermore, a CHANS approach improves our assessment of the societal impacts of fisheries degradation, which is essential to communicating the value of investment in sustainable management and conservation. Broadly, this project will advance innovative approaches to the integration of social and ecological scientific inquiry in fisheries and communicate those advances with managers.
The advantage in addressing this challenge as a multistate effort stems from the fact that US fisheries are highly varied and represent multi-scale systems requiring a rich set of intellectual expertise and data to fully understand these systems and allow for enhanced management value to society, locally, regionally and globally. Our multistate team represents such a broad group of scientists with expertise in the ecological and social sciences that is ideally suited to investigate the complex issues threatening sustainable management of sundry, complex fisheries. We have expertise in inland and marine fisheries and expertise, expertise working over different spatial extents, and experience using the CHANS approach to address socio-economic and ecological problems related to the diversity and scale of fisheries and aquatic resource problems and opportunities. Additionally, this team of scientists and practitioners have a history of working effectively together.
Besides yielding greater understanding of inland and marine fisheries from a CHANS perspective, important outcomes of this work will include development of applications based on emerging frameworks focused on emerging impacts, threats, needs, and opportunities surrounding fisheries resources and management programs (Objective 3) and working in partnership with state, federal, tribal, NGO, industry and other groups to enhance their capacity to operationalize CHANS (Objective 4). The experience of our multistate research team and the strength of our relationships with the natural resource management community positions our group to make important recommendations to aid in productive and sustainable management of inland and marine fisheries into the future. These outcomes will directly support USDA Science Priority #5, improving human health through precision nutrition and food quality to the degree that this work will directly contribute to sustainable managment of fisheries; additionally, our outcomes will indireclty support USDA Science Priorities #1 and #3, with increased profitability to aquaculture facilities and better approaches for managing invasives species that could limit fisheries.
Related, Current and Previous Work
Objectives
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Collect and analyze ecological and/or socioeconomic data to inform understanding of coupled human and natural system dynamics affecting freshwater fisheries at multiple spatial, temporal, and social scales.
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Develop and evaluate emerging frameworks that address the complexities of scale and connectivities in CHANS such as telecoupling and metacoupling.
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Contextualize these data and frameworks in relation to existing and emerging impacts, threats, needs and opportunities surrounding fisheries resources and management programs, such as food security and invasive species.
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Work in partnership with state, federal, tribal, NGO, industry and other groups to enhance their capacity to address and collaborate on complex scale and connectivity challenges in CHANS.