SEMINAR: SEFSC Brown-Bag Seminar - MONDAY May 24 - 12 noon

[Michael Schirripa <Michael.Schirripa@noaa.gov>]

You are invited to attend the

SOUTHEAST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER
BROWN-BAG SEMINAR

MONDAY!
Monday May 24  at  12:00 noon in the Outbuilding Seminar Room

Title:  NOAA's Integrated Ecosystem Assessment Program:
An Approach for the Gulf of Mexico

Speaker:  Michael J. Schirripa
Affiliation: Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Sustainable Fisheries Division

Abstract

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recently moved towards an Ecosystem Approach to Management for its eight Large Marine Ecosystems (LME).  Towards this end, NOAA is initiating an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) effort within the Gulf of Mexico LME, a tropical/sub-tropical, partially isolated body of water that encompasses several international coastlines and a growing human population.  An IEA is a synthesis and quantitative analysis of information on relevant physical, chemical, ecological and human processes in relation to specified ecosystem management objectives.  The primary goal of our IEA is to unify the critical components of the ecosystem into one integrated model, such as Atlantis or Ecosim-Ecopath, and evaluate trade-offs in resource utilization between the components using a management strategy evaluation framework. We are currently undertaking an IEA for the Gulf of Mexico by laying the groundwork for a single unified data management system which incorporates and combines the catalog and web service functions of EcoWatch and Environmental Research Division's Data Access Program (ERDDAP).  Our efforts to date are focusing on creating a sound database structure that will serve as the basis for several individual IEAs within the overall LME, each addressing specific management questions.  IEA management objectives will involve the collection of new data, and rely on making the best use of data that already exists in numerous, distributed databases housed at government agencies, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations.  These distributed data will be discoverable through NOAA’s EcoWatch catalog and ERDDAP web services both currently in operation.