Incorporating Cumulative Impacts Models

Cumulative impact models are used to understand the current state of ocean ecosystems. SeaSketch uses these models to help planners understand how management plans may reduce cumulative impact scores. In a collaboration with Ben Halpern at the UCSB Bren School for Environmental Science and Management, the SeaSketch team is developing a project to bring cumulative impact models to marine spatial planners. Available as an "out-of-the-box" service, SeaSketch projects may display the cumulative impact model published in Science by Halpern et al, 2008.

Using this model as a guide, users may draw prospective management plans and calculate the cumulative impact scores within that region. Then, using simple tools, users may draw down stressors to simulate how management plans aimed at reducing stressors may effect the cumulative impact score for any given management zone.

The prototype project may be accessed at http://impacts.seasketch.org. An example output is provided below. To generate this analysis, I simply uploaded the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for the United Kingdom, then ran the report which shows the current cumulative impact score. Here's how that looks:

Then, I used some simple slider tools to reduce the impacts of demersal desructive fishing anddemersal non-destricutive fishing with high bycatch, simulating a prospective management plan for the UK:

Then, I ran the report again and could see that I reduced my mean cumulative impact score from the existing 13.48 to 5.38.

I then saved this "sketch" as a prospective management plan that can be shared with other users. Pretty neat!

Check out the sketch posted in a discussion forum here.

Many thanks to Dan Yocum for developing the reporting and analytical functions used in this prototype tool. As new cumulative impact models and the associated data are made available, we will be able to spin up new projects geared toward regional marine spatial planning initiatives.