Prioritizing Management Actions and Building Resilience Using Network Theory and Risk Analysis
Presentation Abstract
Coastal areas are some of the most populated on the planet, and are host to diverse human uses. These human uses, operating alongside global stressors such as climate change, have associated environmental (considered broadly including social) impacts that can threaten ecosystem services that foster resilience in coastal ecosystems. Management and mitigation strategies are often needed to reduce these impacts and maintain social-ecological resilience. Sustaining both human uses as well as the environment is a daunting challenge due to the multitude of potential management strategies that can be applied. Understanding the risks posed to the environment from human activities as a network of impact pathways can help management organizations understand prominent drivers of impact on key environmental components. Using network theory, we show how management organizations often implicitly assume linear pathways as dominant drivers of impact, which, when wrong, lead to ineffectual management strategies. There are often prominent indirect pathways of impact requiring management as well. Using a risk assessment with network theory can reveal important leverage points for management interventions and/or mitigation actions to effectively reduce impacts on important environmental components. Reviewing a case study on the coast of British Columbia, we show how these leverage points can be revealed and lead to strategic, prioritized management actions. Such an approach, which requires only literature review and expert judgement elicitation, can be utilized to realize management goals in the Salish Sea to help promote a resilient coast.
Session Title
Building coastal ocean social-ecological resilience in the Salish Sea: what does it mean and how can it be done?
Conference Track
People
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2016 : Vancouver, B.C.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
2016 12:00 AM
End Date
2016 12:00 AM
Location
2016SSEC
Type of Presentation
Oral
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Coastal zone management--British Columbia--Evaluation; Human ecology--British Columbia; Social sciences--Network analysis
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); British Columbia
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Prioritizing Management Actions and Building Resilience Using Network Theory and Risk Analysis
2016SSEC
Coastal areas are some of the most populated on the planet, and are host to diverse human uses. These human uses, operating alongside global stressors such as climate change, have associated environmental (considered broadly including social) impacts that can threaten ecosystem services that foster resilience in coastal ecosystems. Management and mitigation strategies are often needed to reduce these impacts and maintain social-ecological resilience. Sustaining both human uses as well as the environment is a daunting challenge due to the multitude of potential management strategies that can be applied. Understanding the risks posed to the environment from human activities as a network of impact pathways can help management organizations understand prominent drivers of impact on key environmental components. Using network theory, we show how management organizations often implicitly assume linear pathways as dominant drivers of impact, which, when wrong, lead to ineffectual management strategies. There are often prominent indirect pathways of impact requiring management as well. Using a risk assessment with network theory can reveal important leverage points for management interventions and/or mitigation actions to effectively reduce impacts on important environmental components. Reviewing a case study on the coast of British Columbia, we show how these leverage points can be revealed and lead to strategic, prioritized management actions. Such an approach, which requires only literature review and expert judgement elicitation, can be utilized to realize management goals in the Salish Sea to help promote a resilient coast.
