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Data integration and dissemination, modelling and resource management
This workpackage seeks three main objectives: 1) Integrating project data and historical information into an interactive CENSOR data bank; 2) Fertilising the knowledge transfer within the interdisciplinary scientific consortium of CENSOR, and into society and public at large, and 3) Constructing conceptual and quantitative, ecosystem/resource - use models, as tools for an adaptive management of the aquatic resources of the South East Pacific region. CENSOR will closely cooperate with coastal resource users, decision makers and other stakeholders in the coastal zones, by means of periodic stakeholder meetings in Peru and Chile, and an Internet discussion forum on ecological, economic and social issues, linked to the CENSOR database system. Historical and current data will be compiled from published and unpublished sources and integrated into a spatially explicit data bank, based on a modern Internet GIS approach, that allows easy data access to all project scientists.
At training workshops and during courses organized by the workpackage scientists, sampling- and experimental approaches as well as techniques for the analysis of project data shall be standardized among the different scientists and working groups.
Various modelling approaches shall be used depending on the type of data, the questions addressed and the scale of research conducted by the different scientists. Multivariate community models shall be used to integrate community data and to evaluate the overall effect of environmental (abiotic and biotic) conditions on community composition, species diversity and resource biomass. Population models shall be applied to determine and integrate research findings on the population dynamics (recruitment, growth and mortality rates) of main resources and dominant species as impacted by changing environmental conditions through the El Niņo Southern Oscillation. Ecosystem models shall be constructed and used for the dynamical simulation of the response of resource biomass to changes in fishing pressure and habitat conditions (e. g., control by predators, changing conditions in primary productivity). These models shall be linked to socio-economic models. Thus, strategies for the adaptive and sustainable resource use within different habitats or sub-areas of the Humboldt Current System shall thereby be explored.
Based on scenario simulations, guidelines for the sustainable use of the ecosystem and its resources shall then be formulated and disseminated. A possible outcome of these model scenarios could be the delimitation of non-take areas (reserves) for most critical habitats of important resources as well as optimal harvest levels or harvest periods (depending on the environmental conditions) along the coastline.
Contact Workpackage Leader: Matthias Wolff |
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