Tool Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs)

The Tool FAQs (and their answers!) provide basic information on the most frequently-asked questions about EBM tools.  We have created these Tool FAQs from questions we get most often from EBM practitioners and from reviewing surveys of the needs of coastal-marine EBM practitioners and reports on the core principles of EBM.  All the questions are below, but not all have answers right now.  We are currently developing answers to them through EBM tool community discussion on our listserver.  (If you would like to be part of this discussion, sign up for the listsever here.)  We will be adding Tool FAQ answers and updating existing answers frequently, so check back often!

Getting Started with EBM:

1) Are there tools that can help us determine ecosystem boundaries?

2) Are there tools that can help us develop conceptual models?

3) Are there tools to help us determine who our stakeholders are and analyze social networks?

4) Are there tools to help us determine laws, regulations, and policies related to our objectives? 

Collecting Data and Developing Basic Information:

5) Are there tools that can help us collect local and indigenous knowledge?

6) Are there tools that can help us develop maps of the spatial extent and intensity of human uses of the ecosystem?

7) Are there tools that can help us develop maps of ecosystem services?

8) Are there tools that can help us determine market and non-market values of ecosystem services?

9) Are there tools that can help us determine connectivity in the marine environment?

10) Are there tools that can help us develop maps of seafloor, habitats, and ecosystem types?

11) Are there tools that can help us determine connectivity across the land-sea interface?

12) Are there tools that can us determine cumulative impact of human and natural disturbances on human communities and ecosystems? 

Sharing Data and Working Together:

13) Are there tools that can help us develop comprehensive, web-accessible databases?

14) Are there tools to help us coordinate communication and implementation activities across government agencies and other project partners?

15) Are there tools to help us engage stakeholders in visioning, goal setting, and decision making (including facilitating consensus building and preventing/resolving conflicts)?

Modeling the ecosystem:

16) Are there tools that can help us model key ecological and socioeconomic processes?

Supporting decision making:

17) Are there tools that can help us assess the ecological and socioeconomic tradeoffs of different management scenarios? 

18) Are there tools that can help us determine our vulnerability to and mitigation measures for climate change and natural disturbances?

19) Are there tools that can help us develop marine spatial plans?

20) Are there tools to help us make complex decisions?

Communicating About the Project:

21) Are there tools to help us communicate science to decision makers and the public?  

Monitoring Results:

22) Are there tools to help us develop ecological and socioeconomic indicators for monitoring?

23) Are there tools to help us develop and implement monitoring plans?

Answers

Question #2: Are there tools that can help us develop conceptual models?

Developing a conceptual model of an ecosystem or EBM project can help project participants come to a common understanding of and communicate about their ecosystem, threats to the ecosystem, and how potential management actions may change things.  The development of conceptual models is a fairly well-established field, and there are a number of tools available to help in developing them.

Some recommended tools are:

  • Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint can be used to digitize simple conceptual models.  These software packages have the advantage that many practitioners already have them and are familiar with them, but using them for developing a conceptual model could become frustrating if models become complex or need frequent adjustment.
  • Microsoft Visio is specifically designed for diagramming purposes such as digitizing conceptual models.  It is not included in basic Microsoft Office suites, however, and therefore may need to be purchased ($200+).
  • On-line Conceptual Diagram Creator is a free, on-line tool to support the creation of conceptual models using symbols from the IAN Symbol Library.  The symbol library was designed with environmental communication in mind, so it contains many symbols relevant to coastal-marine EBM communication.
  • Miradi is software for managing conservation projects.  Helping to develop conceptual models is just one of its many functions.  Miradi differs from the Microsoft products in that it supports the process of developing a conceptual model as well as the digitizing of the model.

Some resources for learning more about creating conceptual models:

Question #9: Are there tools that can help us determine connectivity in the marine environment?

In a marine EBM context, "connectivity" refers to the idea that different areas are linked together by the movement of something between them.  Marine connectivity can take the form of:

  • Migration of animals between habitat patches
  • Dispersal of larvae from spawning locations to downstream habitats, and
  • Flow of nutrients, sediments, and toxins from a watershed to an estuary or within the marine environment.

If different areas are connected, then management decisions for one area may affect other areas as well and these impacts need to be considered in decision making.  Most predictions of connectivity rely on predictions of water circulation from hydrodynamic models or altimetry data to predict how currents will transport larvae, nutrients, sediments, etc.  And if what is being transported “behaves”, e.g. sinks or actively swims, this behavior needs to be accounted for as well.  Some tools for determining connectivity are described below. As a caveat, though, connectivity in the marine environment is extremely variable between locations and species.  We highly recommend consulting with experts and literature on your region before diving into tool use. 

Two relatively accessible connectivity modeling tools for managers are: 

CONNIE: Lucky Australians, CONNIE maps statistics on particle diffusion through time around Australia and can be used to predict larval dispersal and recruitment and contaminant dispersion.  A new version of CONNIE for Australasia and Southeast Asia and at finer scales and over a range of depths is under development and is scheduled to be released in late 2009. It will also allow exploration of the effects of a range of simple biological behaviors.

Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools (MGET):  The free MGET toolbox includes a tool for modeling dispersal of larvae between patches of suitable habitat (such as coral reefs) by ocean currents.  The tool is integrated into ArcGIS and works like this:

  1. You supply rasters that specify the locations of spawning sites (e.g. coral reefs).
  2. You specify a range of dates for which you want to perform the simulation.  The tool downloads ocean currents data from Aviso, an oceanographic data provider, and prepares it for use in the simulation.
  3. You specify some parameters for the simulation (e.g., initial larval concentration, etc) and run it.  The tool simulates the movement of larvae by the currents and reports the probability of larvae been transported from one site to another.  The output is a shapefile that shows the strength of the connections between all of the sites and a time series of rasters that show the density of larvae through time. 

This tool is appropriate for certain situations but not others, and the developers encourage you to contact them to discuss your situation before using it.  Read more about this tool in:

Both CONNIE and the connectivity tool in MGET are relatively accessible for managers because they have water current predictions built into them or access that information as they run.  There are a variety of other tools for determining marine connectivity which generally require collaboration with oceanography experts for use.  An example is Ichthyop which tracks simulated eggs and larvae to their destinations to predict marine population connectivity.  Ichthyop uses results from hydrodynamic models to run and can be used in areas where those base hydrodynamic models have been calibrated. 

For general overviews on marine connectivity, see:

Many thanks to Jason Roberts, Beth Fulton, Christophe Lett, Scott Condie, Claire Paris, and Sarah Carr.  This answer is a summary of their contributions.  Answer posted on June 18, 2009.

Question #16: Are there tools that can help us model key ecological and socioeconomic processes?

Watersheds
Many pollutants to the marine environment, particularly excess nutrients and sediments, come from terrestrial sources.  Effective watershed management is therefore critical to marine EBM, and watershed models are an essential part of the EBM toolkit.  Watershed models use factors such as rainfall, land cover, soil type, impervious surface coverage, and slope to predict runoff from watersheds into bodies of water.  When coupled with marine ecosystem models, watershed models can help predict how changes in land use (such as urban growth and conversion of agricultural lands) and pollution management (such as improved sewage treatment and fertilizer application) will affect marine ecosystems. Tools that help predict these types of impacts range from relatively simple to quite complex.  A few examples of available watershed models include:

  • Impervious Surface Analysis Tool (ISAT) - Estimates the percentage of impervious surface and, from this, water quality in a user-defined area.
  • Nonpoint Source Pollution and Erosion Comparison Tool (N-SPECT) - Estimates runoff, pollutant, and sediment loads from a user-defined area and can compare pollutant concentrations in receiving waters to water quality standards.
  • Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model (a customized regional model based on the general Hydrologic Simulation Program Fortran [HSPF] watershed model) - Estimates runoff, pollutant, and sediment loads to the Bay through comprehensive simulations of relevant hydrologic and nutrient cycles.  It is linked to an estuary model for the Bay.  Together, these models have been used to set limits on nutrient input into the Bay, track nutrient loads, and determine how further reductions in nutrient and sediment loads would affect Bay water quality.

Resources for learning about other useful watershed models are: 

This answer is taken adapted from "The EBM Toolbox" that appeared in Marine Ecosystems and Management, Vol 1, No 4, Jun-Aug 2008.

Fisheries
In ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), tools are needed to help assess and plan for the impact of fisheries on natural and human systems.  Such tools may include:

  • Models of ecosystem structure and function
  • Simulations of how fisheries management actions would affect ecosystem structure and function, and
  • Simulations of how changes in ecosystem structure and function would affect ecosystem services and human communities.

Tools to perform these functions have been developed for a variety of intended users.  Some commonly used tools include:

  • Coastal Transects Analysis Model — A free, on-line visualization and decision-support tool for describing and analyzing interactions between natural and human systems, with an emphasis on fisheries and aquatic resources.  It is available in two forms: a basic model that utilizes descriptive information about a coastal area and is appropriate for data-poor areas, and an advanced model for users with detailed information about their coastal area.
  • Ecopath with Ecosim — A free suite of ecosystem modeling tools that can be used to evaluate the ecosystem effects of fishing and explore management policy options.  It is one of the most user-friendly and least data-intensive of the whole-ecosystem models (models that represent all trophic levels) but still requires data that may be difficult to obtain (e.g. species abundance estimates) in data-poor areas.
  • Atlantis — A free whole-ecosystem model intended for use in management strategy evaluation.  It incorporates sub-models for the marine environment (physical and biological components), industry (including pollution, climate change, and fishing fleet dynamics), and management actions (including gear restrictions, days at sea, quotas, spatial and temporal zoning, discard restrictions, size limits, and bycatch mitigation). Calibration and use of Atlantis can be time- and data-intensive, and it is generally not suitable for data-poor areas.

To learn more about marine ecosystem models and their applicability to EBFM, we suggest “Models for an ecosystem approach to fisheries” published by FAO (www.fao.org/docrep/010/a1149e/a1149e00.htm).

This answer is adapted from "The EBM Toolbox" that appeared in Marine Ecosystems and Management, Vol 1, No 6, Dec 2008-Feb 2009.

Question #19: Are there tools that can help us develop marine spatial plans?

We had a lot to say about this one, so it got its own webpage.  Read about marine spatial planning tools.

Question #22: Are there tools to help us develop ecological and socioeconomic indicators for monitoring?

Indicators are quantitative or qualitative measures that provide information about the status of or changes in ecological or socioeconomic aspects of an ecosystem.  Many structural and functional properties of ecosystems are difficult to measure directly (e.g. community well-being), so easier-to-measure indicators (e.g. cost of housing relative to average income) serve as proxies for the difficult-to-measure properties.  Monitoring indicators and protocols have been developed for a wide variety of coastal and marine systems.  The Coastal Indicators Information Exchange website provides a great resource for learning about existing coastal indicator work and determining if new efforts can build on existing work. 

When developing new indicators is called for, ecosystem models provide a means of selecting optimal indicators.  In a model ecosystem, BOTH potential indicators and the changes in ecosystem structure and function that the indicators are meant to track can be measured, and the performance of indicators at tracking ecosystem properties can be evaluated.  The following publications provide additional information on how ecosystem models can be used to select indicators:

  • Samhouri, J.F., P.S. Levin, C.J. Harvey. 2009. Quantitative evaluation of marine ecosystem indicator performance using food web models. Ecosystems. DOI: 10.1007/s10021-009-9286-9
  • Fulton E. A., Smith, A. D. M., and Punt, A. E., 2005. Which ecological indicators can robustly detect effects of fishing? ICES Journal of Marine Science 62:540 – 551.

There are a wide variety of models that could be used to select indicators.  If indicators for the system(s) that you want to monitor do not appear to exist or are inappropriate or inadequate and you are interested in using models to develop new indicators, we recommend contacting expert modelers for the system(s) you are interested in.  They will be able to advise you about the ability of available models to help develop and test indicators for your system(s) and the possibility of collaborations to conduct this work. 

Question #23: Are there tools to help us develop and implement monitoring plans?  

Monitoring tools is one of the least developed EBM tool areas, but a number of valuable tools for developing and implementing monitoring plans do exist. A general tool to assist with monitoring plan development and implementation is Miradi.  Miradi is a conservation planning and implementation tool that facilitates monitoring, as well as project design and management.  The monitoring aspect of the tool helps users identify and prioritize monitoring indicators to measure the status of conservation targets and to assess the effectiveness of their strategies. Eventually, the tool will also facilitate the storage and analysis of key monitoring data. 

Two tools that can assist with sample design for monitoring plans are:

  • Sampling Design Tool for ArcGIS is a free ArcGIS 9.2-based tool for selecting a sample from a population and performing sample design analysis.  When these functions are done iteratively, the tool can help develop an optimal sampling design for obtaining accurate, high-precision estimates of population metrics at a minimum of cost.
  • Visual Sample Plan (VSP) is a free tool that supports the development of sampling plans based on statistical sampling theory and the statistical analysis of sample results.  VSP includes sample location visualization capabilities and optimal sampling design and statistical analysis strategies.

A more specialized tool, Eureka!, is a free open source tool for comparing subtidal monitoring data from fully-protected marine reserves with data from other sites.  The ultimate goal of Eureka is to enable users to obtain basic graphic comparisons and statistical analyses from monitoring data quickly so they can be used in stakeholder processes.

Many thanks to Raychelle Daniel, Beth Fulton, Tracy Gill, Zac Hart, David Revell, and Jameal Samhouri for providing background information for this response.