North Pacific Marine Science Organization

PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

ICES Symposium on the “Ecological basis of risk analysis for marine ecosystems”
by Alexei Orlov

Fig. 1 Participants of the ICES symposium “Ecological Basis of Risk Analysis for Marine Ecosystems”, June 2–4, 2014, at the Art Factory in Porvoo,
Finland.

The world’s marine ecosystems are facing an increasing
number of challenges. Fishing intensity is high, and there
are several other threats such as possible oil spills fromdrilling and transportation, climate change, eutrophication,and risks associated with aquaculture. The aggregate
analysis of multiple interacting risk factors is a challenging
task for scientists. While risk assessment methods are wellestablished in scientific disciplines like finance, health, andinsurance, they are less established in resource management
and climate change.

(ICES/Finland), Dr. Tony Smith (ICES/Australia) and Dr.
Alexei Orlov (PICES/Russian Federation) (Fig. 2).
The aim of the symposium was to support ICES’ strategic
goal to evaluate the uncertainties related to the sustainabilityof marine-related industries and production of integrated
advice to decision makers. Further, it was to enhance cooperation between ICES and other bodies relevant to riskbased management of marine activities, and to broaden thediversity of scientists participating in these activities. In
providing scientific advice, one of the main tasks of ICES
advisory and scientific activities is to assess risks andincorporate risk analyses in an integrated and scientificallyjustified way and to successfully communicate these toscientists in other fields, to managers and to a wider
audience. This allows identification of potential risks andleads to better opportunities to manage or control these risks.

About 80 scientists from 18 countries (Australia, Canada,Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan,New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Spain, Sweden,Switzerland, Russia, United Kingdom, and USA) gathered
near the bank of the Porvoo River in the famous old city ofPorvoo, Finland, from June 2–4, 2014, for a symposium on
the “Ecological basis of risk analysis for marine
ecosystems” (Fig. 1).

The symposium was organized around six overarchingthemes: Fisheries management under uncertainty,
 Decision modelling in fisheries management, Probabilistic fish stock assessment,
 Oil spill and eutrophication risk analysis,
 Environmental risk assessment for marine areas, Risk analysis in aquaculture.

The ICES symposium was co-sponsored by PICES, the EU
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Year of the Gulf ofFinland 2014, The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies,
Maa-ja vesitekniikan tuki ry, and Finnish Cultural
Foundation and was convened by Professor Sakari Kuikka

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North Pacific Marine Science Organization
structure which describes the essential features ofpopulation dynamics. The population can be structured by
one or more attributes. For example, age-growth andlength-species structures can be specified. The transitionof the population from one time step to the next is defined
as a probability distribution. This distribution is derived
from the assumption that individual fish are correlated due
to schooling behavior or patchiness in the environment.
Tailoring the GPDM to an assessment problem requires athorough search for existing information. An important partof the project was to develop ways to formulate theinformation found from literature, databases and experts
into prior probability distributions that describe how well
the biology of the population is known. Once thealternative model structures and prior distributions forparameters have been specified, the Bayesian approach is
to update these beliefs in light of observed assessment data.
Usually, the data are not very informative about most of theparameters but can provide new insights about parameter
combinations that pose a difficult computational challenge.
Session 1. Fisheries management under uncertainty. Thissession dealt with uncertainties from a range of sources that
contribute to difficult management processes. Presenters
tried to answer the following questions related to data-poor
stocks, climate-dependent productivity, complex systems
with high numbers of target and bycatch species, and social
behaviour by fishers, consumers and policy makers: How
can modellers and managers express risks inunderstandable and practically implementable ways? How
can management strategies be developed that are robust tothese sources of uncertainty? How can the acceptability ofrisks be determined in consistent processes? What can belearned from other disciplines applying risk analysis
methods?

Fig. 2 Two of the symposium convenors: (top) Prof. Sakari Kuikka,(bottom) Dr. Alexei Orlov.

The symposium (Fig. 3) was opened with a “welcome andopening” speech by the Vice-Rector of the University ofHelsinki, Prof. Pertti Panula. This was followed by apresentation by the Vice-Chairman of the ICES Advisory
Committee (ACOM), Dr. Carmen Fernandez (Germany),
who spoke on Bayesian solutions to ICES responsibilities.
The keynote talk by Prof. Samu Mäntyniemi (University ofHelsinki), described a Bayesian approach to fisheries stock
assessment used in the EU project ECOKNOWS (Effective
Use of Ecosystem and Biological Knowledge in Fisheries).
Despite their growing popularity, many of the Bayesianstock assessments have only partially followed the logic of
Bayesian reasoning. The most notable deviation has been
the idea borrowed from statistical data analysis, according
to which all the model parameters should be statisticallyidentifiable based on the observed data at hand. This has
led to the practice of using different model structures,
depending on the amount of data available. A goal of theECOKNOWS project was to develop a Bayesian stockassessment modelling framework which allows forbiologically credible population dynamics and is able toquantify the uncertainty arising from the usual confoundingof the model parameters. The General Population
Dynamics Model (GPDM) was designed to have a modular
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There was a wide range of presentations regarding analysis
of risk assessment for fisheries management that involves
various sources of data (life history, environment, ecology,economy, climate, etc.). Different methodical approaches,
software and databases used in current fisheries
management under data-limited conditions were consideredand discussed.
Session 2. Decision modelling in fisheries management.
This session focused on the following questions:
Modelling stocks is an essential component of fisheries
management but are models explicitly addressing thedecision-making processes used by fisheries managers?
How can we integrate ecological, social, economic andinstitutional aspects? Which variables are relevant for
stakeholders? How are model outputs displayed so thatmanagement problems and options can be efficiently
visualised to support decisions? How may we treat
tradeoffs? How do models provide feedback on pastdecisions? To what extent can fisheries models learn andpartially automate decision-making? Are there financial
instruments that can deal effectively with ecological risk?
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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

Fig. 3 The symposium in session.

The keynote presentation was given by a member of theECOKNOWS Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Robert
Stephenson, (Canadian Fisheries Research Network). The
ECOKNOWS project represents a major initiative in thechallenge of improving fisheries assessment methods byintegrating new sources of biological knowledge and thestudy of the ecological basis for risk analysis for marine
ecosystems. An attempt has been made to put theECOKNOWS experience in context by looking at thedevelopments and progress related to this theme over thepast 30 years, and by looking forward at outstanding
questions and issues. Looking back, it is instructive tocompare the themes and methods of this meeting withthose, for example, of the 1998 Symposium on“Confronting uncertainty in the evaluation andimplementation of fisheries-management systems” (ICES
Journal of Marine Science 56:6, 1999). Looking forward,
it is important to consider how to address the challenges ofevolving domestic and international policies, the move to‘ecosystem’ and ‘integrated’ management, increasing
market (and general public) pressure for certification ofsustainability, and the need to obtain and maintain ‘sociallicense’. The evolving landscape of fishery evaluation andmanagement demands has increased participation inmanagement
processesandsharedstewardship
responsibility, and must adapt to changes in both theecosystem and in public perception. Additionally, it isimportant to consider fisheries with other activities in morecomprehensive evaluations that can support management
decisions in an integrated context. Outstanding research
priorities include: (1) more holistic evaluations that take
into account the full suite of ecological, social, economic
and institutional objectives related to management;(2) methods to support management trade-offs among
diverse objectives and activities, and (3) methods that willallow consideration of the cumulative impacts of multiple
activities.

Other presentations considered and discussed various
examples of decision models with the use of different
approaches under different conditions.
Session 3. Probabilistic fish stock assessment. The key
questions of this session were: Fisheries assessment now
normally include uncertainty as an integral part of themodelling approach, but how consistently is uncertainty
applied in the many parameters of complex models, or in
the structure of the model itself? While there is an intuitive
expectation that reducing uncertainty is desirable, how canpriorities be set and the value of reducing relevant
individual uncertainties be judged? Are uncertainties on
ecological and socio-economic parameters treated the sameor differently? Do the assessment models learn from all
sources of information effectively?
The session was kicked off with keynote presentation by
Dr. Tony Smith (CSIRO, Australia) entitled “Add a littlespice to your life”. Much like cooking, the art of modelling isknowing when to add that little bit of extra spice. The
number of foodweb and end-to-end models are growing in
number and coverage of the global oceans. While they are an
informative means of exploring system dynamics they are
not an appropriate risk assessment tool for many applications(such as tactical stock assessments). Nevertheless, experience
with such models and other multi-species methods isproviding insights into what kinds of ecological
idiosyncrasies can undermine the performance of population
dynamics with static parameters. Environmental drivers,
habitat dependencies, critical predator or prey linkages canshape population trajectories by creating bottlenecks at key
points in a stock’s life history. In addition, shifting
environmental regimes and ecosystem status highlight theimportance of considering non-stationary parameters – notjust for recruitment, but also size and natural mortality rates.
Not all of these additional concerns will always be relevant,37

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this is not a call for more complexity “just in case”. Instead,
it is a simple reminder that good model practice is toperiodically revise what are key processes, links andfeedbacks that need to be considered for the case in point, tocheck the assumptions. This is something that is being more
widely recognized as new hybrid and intermediate modeltypes proliferate and ocean ecosystems change around us. As
with any discipline in its early steps, however, a lot can belearnt from sharing lessons to date. Other presentations dealt
with various examples of probabilistic stock assessments
based on various methods, models, and approaches.

was a single poster, dealing with aquaculture-environment
interactions in Canada.
The poster session consisted of a dozen of posters that
focused on various aspects of risk assessments analysis formarine living resources.
The final event of the symposium was a discussion led byDr. Robert Stephenson who stimulated participants toformulate key issues that were considered during
symposium and those that were missed (Fig. 4). A special
issue in the ICES Journal of Marine Sciences has been set
to publish the results presented at this symposium.

Session 4. Oil spill and eutrophication risk analysis. Thissession addressed the questions: How are pollution andeutrophication risk analyses formulated? How the risks
caused by transportation of oil are linked to ecosystem
health? How are exposure and response impacts quantified?
How can management at multiple points along an exposure
pathway be focused on localized events and endpoints?
How are pollution risks built into broader fisheries, coastaland ocean use management models that include multiple,potentially competing, uses of ecosystems? What kinds ofadvisory and stakeholder groups are needed to linkenvironmental and fisheries risk together?
The session consisted of five presentations by Finnish andGerman scientists and focused mainly on modelling of oil
spills in the Baltic and North Seas under various conditions.

Fig. 4 Final discussion convened by Dr. Robert Stephenson (Canada).

The steering committee of the symposium included Tapani
Pakarinen (Finland), Konstantinos Stergiou (Greece), John
Mumford (UK), Robert Stephenson (Canada), Atso
Romakkaniemi (Finland), Kirsi Hoviniemi (Finland),
Sakari Kuikka (Finland), Tony Smith (Australia), andAlexei Orlov (Russia).

Session 5. Environmental risk assessment for marine areas.
This session tried to answer the questions: To what extent
are environmental risk assessments in marine areas
different from terrestrial systems? How are acceptableendpoints determined in these complex systems? How can
the outputs of fishery risk assessments be incorporated intowider marine ecosystem risk assessments?

Dr. Alexei Orlov (orlov@vniro.ru) isPrincipal Scientist at the Laboratoryof Sea Fishes of the Russian Far East,
Russian Federal Research Institute ofFisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO),
Moscow, Russian Federation. Hemaintains broad interests in taxonomy,
zoogeography, distribution, general
biology and stock assessment ofdemersal and deepwater fishes, mostly of the North Pacific andpartly of the North Atlantic. Alexei has worked in VNIRO for 28
years on a variety of commercial and bycatch groundfish species
with special interest related to elasmobranchs, lampreys andgrenadiers. He is the author of over 550 scientific and popularscience publications, including abstracts of conferences,monographs, and chapters. Alexei is the member of Moscow
Naturalists Society, European Ichthyological Society, Russian
Hydrobiological Society, American Fisheries Society, Asian
Fisheries Society, Fisheries Society of British Isles, IchthyologicalSociety of Japan, and Russian Geographic Society. He serves as
Executive Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Ichthyology,
Associated Editor for Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria and is amember of the Editorial Boards of the Russian journals Izvestiya
TINRO, Trudy VNIRO, and Vestnik AGTU Fisheries. In PICES heis a member of the BIO Committee.

Eight presentations by scientists from the USA and Europe
tried to review current approaches of evaluating
environmental risk assessment for various ecosystemcomponents using different tools (marine spatial planning,statistical models, etc.).
Session 6. Risk analysis in aquaculture. Production fromaquaculture is rapidly overtaking capture fisheries. Simple
harvest optimization has been applied to aquaculture
modelling but as production becomes more intensive andglobal, aquaculture must be managed with the expectationof risk. Moreover, aquaculture creates risk for ecosystems.
Risks to external (pollution, diseases and parasites, genetic
introgression, escapees) and internal (diseases, parasites,genetic deterioration) effects of aquaculture need to beincluded in aquaculture models. This session was expected
to answer two questions: Can general risk models beapplied to integrate the range of threats aquaculture faces?
How the risks could be incorporated in spatial planning?
Unfortunately, these questions did not receive sufficientscientific attention, and the session was cancelled. ThereSummer 201438