UW Aquatic & Fishery Sciences Quantitative Seminar

Matt Burgess

University of California, Santa Barbara

Pragmatic management of complex social-ecological systems

Abstract

The complexity of ocean systems, combined with limitations on data and capacity, demands an approach to management that is pragmatic—meaning goal- and solution-oriented, realistic, and practical. I will briefly outline a five-pillared approach to pragmatic ocean management, and then focus the remainder of the talk on one of the pillars: drawing more insight from existing data. Specifically, I will discuss four concepts that can be leveraged to make data go further: 1) If two systems are similar, information from one has value in the other. 2) The more complex a system is, the more information each data point carries. 3) If multiple states or processes can be measured relative to one another, only one must be measured in absolute. 4) High-level first principles can restrict the range of alternate hypotheses the data must evaluate. I will highlight recent successes and future opportunities in applying each concept in marine systems.