W1: MONITOR Workshop
co-sponsored by Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council's
"Gulf Ecosystem Monitoring" initiative (2 days)
Examine and critique a North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report
Co-Convenors: Vyacheslav B. Lobanov (Russia), David L. Mackas (Canada),
Phillip Mundy (U.S.A.), Sei-ichi Saitoh (Japan) & William J. Sydeman
(U.S.A.).
An important goal for operational monitoring
of changing ocean conditions is timely conversion of raw data to
scientific and management decisions. Many different steps
are implicit in this process:
- compiling and summarizing a diverse suite of variables, measured
by multiple data-collectors at multiple locations;
- recognizing local changes quickly;
- making comparisons among variables and among locations for evidence
of consistency, spatial extent, and likely ecological impact;
- notifying clients (including policy makers, resource
users, other scientists, and the general public);
- possibly triggering alterations in data collection or ecosystem
management strategies.
In general, the marine science community lacks both the tools and
the habits needed to carry out these steps on a routine basis. As
a step toward developing these tools and habits, PICES MONITOR Task
Team is convening a workshop that is intended to identify what should
be addressed in the North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report, using relevance
to management decisions and relation to other pieces in other areas
of the North Pacific as selection criteria. Format will be invited
cross-disciplinary presentations from each nation or region, followed
by plenary and/or breakout discussion of if and how these pieces fit
together as a picture of the entire North Pacific. The goal for the
workshop is primarily as an exercise in process, rather than
necessarily producing a polished final product. However, we anticipate
that the prototype report will be published on the PICES web
site.