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Managers, stakeholders, and scientists recognize the need for collaborative, transparent, integrated approaches to complex resource management issues, and frameworks to address these complex issues are developing. Through the course of 2019, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council developed a conceptual model of ecosystem linkages and risks for summer flounder, a species of recreational and commercial fisheries importance. The proximal aim of the model was to develop a list of integrated management questions that could be refined and addressed through a future quantitative management strategy evaluation. As such, this conceptual model served as a scoping tool. However, the true value of the conceptual model lays elsewhere: familiarizing resource managers historically focused on single-species management with the potential utility of an ecosystem approach to management. This paper details the goals and development of the conceptual model and situates this process in the broader context of best practices for collaborative open science and scientific reproducibility. Further, it highlights a successful path by which the shift towards ecosystem-based management can be actuated.

Updating stock assessments frequently and ensuring that the most recent fishery-dependent and -independent data are included is a costly endeavor. We use a management strategy evaluation for the mid-Atlantic summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus) fishery to determine the economic returns to increasing update frequencies and decreasing the data management lag. We simulate the annual acceptable biological catch for the period 2015–2040 under a range of update frequencies and data lags. We calculate present value net economic benefits for the commercial and recreational fisheries for each scenario. Discounting, the timing of harvest quotas, species-specific price flexibilities, and fishing cost response to biomass and quota differences suggest that the benefits gained from frequent updating and reduction in data lags will vary by fishery. For summer flounder, we find the cost of more frequent updating (1 versus 5 years) and reducing the data management lag (1 versus 2 years) are more than compensated for by societal benefits generated by the fishery.

There has been a proliferation of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) models created and published in recent years. However, the degree of coupling between natural and social systems varies widely across the different coupled models and is often a function of the disciplinary background of the team conducting the research. This manuscript examines models developed for and used by NOAA Fisheries in support of Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in the United States. It provides resource managers and interdisciplinary scientists insights on the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used SES models: end-to-end models, conceptual models, bioeconomic models, management strategy evaluations (MSEs), fisher behavior models, integrated social vulnerability models, and regional economic impact models. These model types are not unique to the literature, but allow us to differentiate between one-way coupled models – where outputs from one model are inputs into a second model of another discipline with no feedback to the first model, and two-way coupled models – where there are linkages between the natural and social system models. For a model to provide useful strategic or tactical advice, it should only be coupled to the degree necessary to understand the important dynamics/responses of the system and to create management-relevant performance metrics or potential risks from an (in)action. However, one key finding is to not wait to integrate! This paper highlights the importance of “when” the coupling happens, as timing affects the ability to fully address management questions and multi-sectoral usage conflicts that consider the full SES for EBFM or ecosystem based management (EBM) more generally.

Standard approaches to environmental and natural resource use externalities generally focus on single-sector resources and user groups. Remedies include Pigouvian-style government constraints, small group controls following Elinor Ostrom, or less frequently, bargaining across users as outlined by Ronald Coase. However, many difficult natural resource management problems involve competing uses of the same resource or multiple interdependent resources, across multiple, heterogeneous sectors. Cross-sectoral externalities are generated and impede attainment of conservation objectives. The multiplicity of resources and stakeholders, who may have different property rights, hold different use or non-use values, have different traditions, or fall under different regulatory regimes, increases the likelihood of multi-jurisdictional conflicts. We provide an institutional analysis following Oliver Williamson's four-levels of institutions (social embeddedness, institutional environment, governance, resource allocation) to illustrate the sources of potential conflict, the costs of addressing them, and the potentials for exchange. In comparing the costs of alternative approaches, we include transaction costs associated property rights; the costs of lobbying, implementing, and enforcing government regulation; and the costs of scaling up from small-group controls when resource problems involve multiple sectors and heterogeneous populations. In our illustrative case examples, instruments that are not formal property rights are exchanged at lower transaction costs. We close by discussing how Coasean, Pareto-improving voluntary exchange agreements may be lower cost, more effective, and more durable solutions than alternative management regimes to mitigate cross-sectoral externalities.

Many fisheries and marine science organizations are working to determine how to meet their missions in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. As such, it seems prudent to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and initiate a discussion among us. As the scientific leadership team for NOAA Fisheries, we wanted to offer some perspectives. Others are also evaluating the impacts of COVID-19 but from the perspective of addressing tactical, day-to-day concerns of restarting operations for various marine and fisheries-oriented organizations. Thus, it seemed appropriate to us to explore the potential challenges posed by COVID-19 and to purposefully ascertain whether there are strategic opportunities for improving how we conduct our operations. We need to find ways to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on our mission and also to glean information from our responses while in the midst of the crisis. We offer some recommendations to that end and offer these thoughts not as having solved every problem, but to learn from each other, compare across organizations, and engage in dialogue within our discipline to advance much-needed changes.

Posted price offers and first price auctions, along with the multi-unit discriminatory auction extension, are two widely used mechanisms for allocating conservation contracts. The choice between the two typically hinges on the trade-off between the posted price's simplicity and the potential revenue gains of the auction. In this paper we introduce a novel mechanism that attempts to bridge the gap between the performance of posted price offers and auctions. A two-price and lottery schedule combines the simplicity of the former with some of the flexibility of the latter. Using a model that incorporates agents' cognitive and information costs of bidding, we analyze how the ranking of allocative efficiency and cost-effectiveness between the mechanisms varies as the wedge of participation costs increases. When the number of bidders is endogenously determined by participation costs, bid shading associated with a lack of competition in the auction compromises its cost-effectiveness vis-a-vis the posted price and the lottery schedule. We use data from three recent buybacks for fishing licenses conducted in Maryland to calibrate our model and identify conditions under which the two-price schedule outperforms the other mechanisms.

As part of their strategy to meet total maximum daily load restrictions in the Chesapeake Bay, managers have developed nutrient trading markets to curb nitrogen and phosphorus flows into the estuarine system. Historically, nutrient trading programs have been restricted to credits between point sources or for agricultural mitigation technologies, such as the planting of cover crops. However, the denitrification and nutrient sequestration associated with oyster reefs has recently been a topic of much biological research. We investigate the role that nutrient credits for ecosystem services provided by restored oyster reefs can play in optimally managing oyster reef complexes by developing a coupled bioeconomic model of oyster reef growth and harvest. Our findings suggest that, along with harvest, the regulating services of denitrification and nutrient sequestration lead to positive net benefits in a majority of scenarios analyzed, although local environmental conditions play a prominent role in the u...

Fisheries managers use buybacks to reduce fleet capacity, conserve fish stocks, and accomplish other goals. In 2009, Maryland and Virginia conducted auctions to buy back commercial fishing licenses. The auctions in both States had similar timing, objectives, and target populations. The divergent designs of the auctions, however, provide a case study with which to investigate effective buyback practices. We compare and contrast the market designs used by Maryland and Virginia, and describe how those differing designs influenced the respective outcomes.

This article studies how rent-seeking behavior induces an informal leasing market for fishing licenses that leads harvesters in a common pool to circumvent rules set by the manager to conserve the resource, as well as how the vulnerability of the resource to such behavior depends on the management approach adopted. License leasing reduces fleet heterogeneity in terms of catch per unit effort as demonstrated by the outward shift in the stochastic production frontier. While aggregate harvest is invariant to alternative profiles of fleet heterogeneity in quota-managed fisheries, the productivity of the restricted variable--total effort--increases with the number of leasing contracts in input-controlled fisheries. If unanticipated by the regulator, the additional pressure on the resource may lead to overfishing and compromise the long-term viability of the industry. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.

This study aimed to analyze the economic effect of the red sea bream Pagrus major offshore aquaculture production system in Korea. Based on the data collected, revenue and expenses throughout the culture period were calculated, and the net present value and internal rate of return of the ten-year cash flow and cash outflow were estimated in order to determine the economic validity of red sea bream offshore aquaculture production. Results showed that the red sea bream offshore aquaculture production system had high profitability based on the current production and market conditions. This is because of its relatively high survival rate, relatively low feed conversion ratio, and good market price level. However, sensitivity analyses of the main variables indicated that the profitability of red sea bream offshore aquaculture is highly vulnerable to production conditions and market condition changes.

The economic performance of the current inshore rock bream aquaculture industry conducted in Yeosu, Korea was compared with a pilot commercial scale offshore aquaculture farm in Jeju, Korea. Data was collected from 12 inshore farms and two production cycles of the offshore farm for use in Monte Carlo simulations run over a ten year time horizon. Net present value was compared for the inshore farms and two survival rate scenarios for the offshore farm. The offshore farm is expected to have a higher survival rate if it can withstand tsunamis and avoid pollution, disease and red tide impacts that are prevalent inshore. When the offshore farm was modeled with its observed higher survival rate, its average net present value ($1,016,483) significantly outperformed the inshore farms average net present value ($182,153). In the second scenario, the offshore farm survival rate was lowered based on performance data from the inshore farms. Not surprisingly, given the higher investment costs, the offshore farm perfor...

The harvest of blue crabs Callinectes sapidus in Chesapeake Bay declined 46% between 1993 and 2001 and remained low through 2008. Because the total market value of this fishery has declined by an average of US $ 3.3 million per year since 1993, the commercial fishery has been challenged to maintain profitability. We developed a bioeconomic simulation model of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery to aid managers in determining which regulations will maximize revenues while ensuring a sustainable harvest. We compared 15 different management scenarios, including those implemented by Maryland and Virginia between 2007 and 2009, that sought to reduce female crab harvest and nine others that used seasonal closures, different size regulations, or the elimination of fishing for specific market categories. Six scenarios produced the highest revenues: the 2008 and 2009 Maryland regulations, spring and fall closures for female blue crabs, and 152- and 165-mm maximum size limits for females. Our most importa...

A simple reduced form inverse demand model is used to determine the price flexibility of Chesapeake Bay oyster production when other producing regions of the United States have their oyster production held at average levels for 2002 to 2006. With the current reduced state of oyster demand compared with earlier periods, a restored Chesapeake oyster fishery that could sustain annual harvests of 4.9 million bushels would result in a predicted price that is significantly lower than the minimum observed from 1950 to 2006 and presumed to be unprofitable. A survey of oyster industry participants suggests that an equilibrium price is more likely to be around $20.06 per bushel. Using the inverse demand model, the predicted level of production is about 3.2 million bushels. Industry members believe that a restored industry, based on Crassostrea ariakensis, would have a greater percentage of oysters going to the shucked market compared with Crassostrea virginica.

Marine scientists and policymakers are encouraging ecosystem-based fishery management (EBFM), but there is limited guidance on how to operationalize the concept. We adapt financial portfolio theory as a method for EBFM that accounts for species interdependencies, uncertainty, and sustainability constraints. Illustrating our method with routinely collected data available from the Chesapeake Bay, we demonstrate the gains from taking into account variances and covariances of gross fishing revenues in setting species total allowable catches. We find over the period from 1962–2003 that managers could have increased the revenues from fishing and reduced the variance by employing EBFM frontiers in setting catch levels.

Interest is growing in offshore aquaculture as a means of overcoming environmental concerns that plague nearshore and coastal aquaculture production. The challenge of dealing in the offshore environment adds expenses that are not present in other aquaculture production systems. We collected financial and production performance data from a commercial-scale offshore aquaculture production system for rock bream off the coast of Korea. Financial performance of the system was evaluated using Aquasim, a stochastic financial simulator. To compare performance, we focused on the 10-yr internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value based on different assumptions regarding fish survival rates and market prices. The baseline model that used the observed survival and market prices had a high probability of financial success and an IRR of 18%. Financial performance became a lot riskier when we assumed that survival rates followed a triangular distribution with a 25% minimum survival that increased 5% per yr, even when the mean survival rate was as high as 97%. Rock bream aquaculture could be successful under that survival scenario if prices are high for the first 5 yr and then start declining in consequence of the industry expanding. In that case, the IRR is around 14%, but with greater variability than the baseline. If prices fall from the initial baseline level in the early yr of production, then the operation has little chance of surviving.

Trotline blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) fishermen in the Patuxent, Chester, and Choptank tributaries of Chesapeake Bay set their gear in areas where the water quality, characterized by average mid-channel bottom dissolved oxygen, varies across the river systems and over the fishing season. Two harvest production models are developed to capture the potential effects of this source of environmental stress. One model treats the impact of water quality as influencing the availability of crabs to the gear, while the second treats the impact as another source of mortality. Both models are estimated assuming that dissolved oxygen has no effect on crab harvests above an upper threshold of 5 mg I−1. Contrary to the mortality model, the availability model produces estimates that are consistent with our prior beliefs that productivity will be negatively impacted by poor water quality. To determine the percentage of the available crab stock in an area that will be harvested by a given amount of gear under different water quality conditions a simulation of the availability model is developed. The simulations show that a decline in average mid-channel bottom dissolved oxygen in the Patuxent River to 4 mg I−1 may lead to a 48% decline in the percentage of the blue crab population in the area that will be harvested with the same amount of fishing effort.

A Poisson catch rate model for striped bass (Morone saxatilis) anglers in Chesapeake Bay was developed that incorporates the effect of bottom temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO). Angler catch rates are shown to be negatively affected by low DO. Predicted angler catch rates were then used in a random utility model of striped bass fishing location choice. Where anglers choose to fish is significantly related to expected catch rate and the travel cost and time from the anglers residence to the fishing location. Results from the random utility model were then used to simulate the economic welfare changes that result from changing DO levels in the Patuxent River. Since there are many substitute sites for fishing in the Patuxent River, the welfare effects are small. Increases in DO from current levels have a small effect on angler welfare, but if levels are allowed to deteriorate so they never exceed 5 mg l−1, the welfare effects are much larger. Under this latter scenario, the net present value of angler losses exceeds $100,000, and are almost $300,000 if the fishing grounds are anoxic. Losses are considerably higher as the area impacted by low oxygen conditions increases.

A multinomial logit discrete choice model is estimated using data collected from a survey of documented boat owners to examine the factors that determine the boater's choice of state of principal use. Travel time and perceived boating quality significantly influence boater choice, but excise taxes that must be paid depending on the state in which the boat is located only negatively influence location choice at extremely high tax levels and only for high income boaters. It is unlikely that a state such as Maryland, which has a relatively high excise tax rate on boaters, could entice more boaters to keep their boats there, simply by lowering the tax rate from 5% to 4%. A more effective means of attracting boaters would be to maintain or improve coastal quality and make potential boaters aware of the improvement.

Pollution in fish habitats can have economic effects on three groups: (1) commercial users and consumers; (2) recreationalists; and (3) nonusers. In commercial fisheries, the economic costs of pollution in the fishery habitats derive from lower production, or consumer perception of reduced fish quality, or both. The economic loss will depend on many factors, including the response of fish stocks to pollutants, the responsiveness of consumers to price changes, and the magnitude of the perceived change in quality of the fish products. Recreational losses due to pollution are manifest in the catch rates of recreational fishers. Additionally, the potential exists for anglers to value fish less if they are afraid to consume the fish they catch because of the quality of the habitat. For any given fishing trip, a decrease in catch rates or reduced take-home catch because of pollution results in fewer benefits to the angler from the experience. Also, people may substitute less pleasurable activities for ...

The controversy surrounding a proposal to allocate walleye pollock Theragra chalcogramma and Pacific cod Gadus macrocephalus harvested in U.S. fisheries off Alaska is reviewed. The walleye pollock allocation, which generated the most concern, would apportion specific shares of the allowable catch to each of the two harvesting sectors, inshore and offshore, along with a set-aside for Alaska community development. The potential transfer is of enormous economic value for industry participants and underscores the importance of identifying the net economic gains (or losses) to the nation that might arise under the proposed allocation scheme. For this reason, a benefit-cost analysis was pivotal in the allocation decisions reached by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The benefit-cost analysis of the allocation proposal served to focus attention on the need for consistent social welfare accounting, of the kind that benefit-cost analysis provides, when management actions are evaluated. Conceptual and pract...

Regulation of fisheries production together with public promotion of fisheries products offer a potentially profitable environment for fishermen. Yet production restrictions are usually insufficient to prevent entry, causing depletion of the resource base and dissipation of long-run profits from promotion. Shorter run gains may be possible, providing producer response to advertising is not instantaneous. Lagged biological and economic responses appear to provide a rationale for pulsed advertising. Moreover, a pulsed advertising policy is shown to mitigate the adverse effects on the resource base which would normally accompany expansion of consumption without direct production control.

Fishing costs are dependent on the size of the fish stock and regulations. Changes in these factors alter the equilibrium industry structure. In a multiproduct fishery, it is not possible to generalize how a reduction in industry catch will be accomplished, through a reduction in catch per vessel or in the number of vessels. Multiproduct cost functions are estimated for the Atlantic clam fishery. Simulations reveal that optimal harvest would be achieved with an increase in the number of vessels and a decrease in the catch per vessel of surf clams and an increase in the catch of ocean quahogs.

This paper extends previous fisheries models by generalizing the necessary and sufficient conditions under which coexistence of specialized and generalized vessels occurs in a multispecies fishery. Economies of scope and demand conditions are argued to dictate coexistence. Inefficiency in market structure is also shown to arise with an inappropriate property rights regime.