Designing the future of contaminants management, together

Speaker

Dr. Sara Mynott

Streaming Media

Presentation Abstract

Both shipping and oil transport are expected to increase in the Salish Sea over the next few years, and it is essential to have a clear understanding of how this activity will impact the ecosystem – so that environmental challenges can be planned for and mitigated. Atlantis is a whole-of-ecosystem model that can assess the impacts of human activity, including the effects of contaminants, like oil, on the marine environment. The model can be used to look at how different contamination events and management approaches affect the whole system – allowing their likely impact to be assessed ahead of time. This ability to explore potential impacts in a virtual environment helps to plan strategically, and make decisions about how to keep the Salish Sea healthy. To ensure such a tool is relevant to decision making, it is vital to understand the needs of diverse partners and build them into the design of the model – and the design of the scenarios that will be tested within it. Drawing on experiences associated with the Salish Sea Atlantis model, this presentation will identify how specialised knowledge brokering can help span boundaries between diverse stake-and rights-holders to facilitate the development of highly relevant decision support tools. In particular, we highlight key steps to take when co-designing a decision-support tool, with a specific focus on creating scenarios and outputs that are tailored to user needs. By defining shared goals for environmental management and planning strategically to tackle challenges before they occur, it is possible to create a shared vision for the Salish Sea and to work towards it, together.

Session Title

Contaminants, Nutrients, and Productivity

Conference Track

SSE10: Contaminants

Conference Name

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2022 : Online)

Document Type

Event

SSEC Identifier

SSE-traditionals-341

Start Date

28-4-2022 10:15 AM

End Date

28-4-2022 11:45 AM

Type of Presentation

Oral

Genre/Form

conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)

Subjects – Topical (LCSH)

Biological monitoring--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Environmental toxicology-- Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Marine ecosystem management--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)

Geographic Coverage

Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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Apr 28th, 10:15 AM Apr 28th, 11:45 AM

Designing the future of contaminants management, together

Both shipping and oil transport are expected to increase in the Salish Sea over the next few years, and it is essential to have a clear understanding of how this activity will impact the ecosystem – so that environmental challenges can be planned for and mitigated. Atlantis is a whole-of-ecosystem model that can assess the impacts of human activity, including the effects of contaminants, like oil, on the marine environment. The model can be used to look at how different contamination events and management approaches affect the whole system – allowing their likely impact to be assessed ahead of time. This ability to explore potential impacts in a virtual environment helps to plan strategically, and make decisions about how to keep the Salish Sea healthy. To ensure such a tool is relevant to decision making, it is vital to understand the needs of diverse partners and build them into the design of the model – and the design of the scenarios that will be tested within it. Drawing on experiences associated with the Salish Sea Atlantis model, this presentation will identify how specialised knowledge brokering can help span boundaries between diverse stake-and rights-holders to facilitate the development of highly relevant decision support tools. In particular, we highlight key steps to take when co-designing a decision-support tool, with a specific focus on creating scenarios and outputs that are tailored to user needs. By defining shared goals for environmental management and planning strategically to tackle challenges before they occur, it is possible to create a shared vision for the Salish Sea and to work towards it, together.