A Practitioner’s Handbook for 

Fisheries Social Impact Assessment

Patricia M. Clay and Lisa L. Colburn

U.S. Department of Commerce

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Marine Fisheries Service

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-212

December 2020

A Practitioner’s Handbook for 

Fisheries Social Impact Assessment

Patricia M. Clay1 and Lisa L. Colburn1, 2

1 NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center

2 NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-212

December 2020

U.S. Department of Commerce

Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Secretary 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Neil A. Jacobs, Ph.D., Acting NOAA Administrator

National Marine Fisheries Service

Chris Oliver, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries 
Recommended citation:

Clay, Patricia M. and Lisa L. Colburn. 2020. A Practitioner’s Handbook for Fisheries Social 

Impact Assessment. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-F/SPO-212, 80 p. 

Copies of this report may be obtained online at http://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/tech-memos/
iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................vi

Acronyms ................................................................................................................................vii

Abstract ..................................................................................................................................viii

I. Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1

II. What is the purpose of this Practitioner’s Handbook? .................................................. 1

a. Why a Step-by-Step Handbook to SIAs?......................................................................... 3

b. What is the relationship of this Handbook to the NMFS Guidelines for Assessment of the 

Social Impact of Fishery Management Actions? ..................................................................... 4

III. Why do we do SIAs? Legal and policy framework ......................................................... 4

a. What laws require SIA?................................................................................................... 5

1. National Environmental Policy Act ............................................................................... 5

2. Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) ...................... 6

b. What are other laws and executive orders relevant to SIA?............................................. 8

c. What are relevant NOAA Fisheries policy directives?...................................................... 8

1. NMFS Guidelines for Assessment of the Social Impact of Fishery Management Actions

9

2. Other relevant NOAA, NOAA Fisheries, and Executive Branch policy directives.......... 9

IV. Where within an Environmental Impact Statement are social impacts discussed?....10

a. SIA versus Affected Human Environment (AHE) section ................................................11

b. Social versus Economic Impact Assessments................................................................11

V. You are beginning work on an SIA: What do you do? ..................................................12

a. What is the regulatory action? ........................................................................................13

1. Allocations ..................................................................................................................13

2. Closed areas/seasons ................................................................................................14

3. Gear restrictions .........................................................................................................18

4. Fish size limits ............................................................................................................20

5. Trip, time-period, and possession limits ......................................................................20

6. Days-at-Sea................................................................................................................21

7. Overall catch limits......................................................................................................21

8. Limited access and limited entry .................................................................................22

9. Catch shares...............................................................................................................23

b. Whom does the regulation affect? .....................................................................................25
iv

1. Fisheries/Fleets.......................................................................................................25

2. Fishermen ...............................................................................................................26

3. Fishing Communities...............................................................................................29

c. Organizing your analyses ..................................................................................................34

1. Fishing Engagement and Fishing Reliance..............................................................36

2. Regional Quotient and Local Quotient.....................................................................36

3. How do I assess environmental justice?..................................................................36

4. How do I assess the social factors relevant to my SIA?...........................................37

5. What about the impacts of climate on management? ..............................................38

d. Writing it up: What is the format of an SIA? .......................................................................39

1. Brief discussion of why SIA is required .......................................................................39

2. Brief description of how key fishing communities were chosen ...................................39

3. Short overview of relevant background data on those communities ............................39

4. Discussion of the communities and fishery/fleet groups impacted under each proposed 

action.................................................................................................................................40

5. Summary of key points ...............................................................................................40

VI. Literature Cited ................................................................................................................42

Appendix A: Other Relevant Laws and Executive Orders....................................................55

1. Executive Order 12898 – Environmental Justice ............................................................55

2. Executive Order 13707 – Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the 

American People ...................................................................................................................55

3. Executive Orders related to Treaty Tribes ......................................................................56

4. Executive Order 12866 – Regulatory Planning and Review............................................56

5. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)......................................................................................56

6. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA)..................................56

Appendix B: Other Relevant Policy Directives .....................................................................57

1. White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Guidance on Cumulative Effects 

under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ............................................................57

2. Policy and Procedures for Compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and 

Related Authorities ................................................................................................................58

3. White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Guidance on Environmental 

Justice under NEPA ..............................................................................................................58

4. Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice ...................................................60

5. Dept. of Commerce Environmental Justice Strategy.......................................................60
v

6. Policies and processes regarding tribes .........................................................................60

7. Office of Management and Budget Guidance on Implementing E.O. 12866 ...................61

8. The Small Business Administration’s Guide for “How to comply with the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act” ........................................................................................................................61

9. NOAA Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) Policy ...................................61

10. NMFS Guidance for Conducting a Review of Catch Share Programs ............................62

Appendix C: Tools and Methods............................................................................................63

1. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) process ................................................................63

2. Literature review.............................................................................................................64

3. General Secondary Data ................................................................................................64

4. Community Social Vulnerability Indicators......................................................................65

a. Fishing Engagement and Reliance .............................................................................66

b. Social Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability......................................67

c. Climate vulnerability....................................................................................................69

5. Semi-structured interviews and Oral Histories ................................................................70

a. Choosing the interviewees ..........................................................................................71

b. Conducting the interviews...........................................................................................72

c. Transcribing and analyzing the interviews...................................................................73

6. Focus Groups.................................................................................................................74

a. Choosing focus group locations and dates..................................................................74

b. Choosing your sample population...............................................................................75

c. Setting up the focus groups ........................................................................................75

d. Conducting the focus groups ......................................................................................75

e. Analyzing the focus group data...................................................................................77

7. Surveys ..........................................................................................................................77

a. Creating the survey.....................................................................................................77

b. Beta testing.................................................................................................................78

c. Choosing a sampling strategy.....................................................................................78

d. Choosing a survey method .........................................................................................79

e. Analysis of survey data ...............................................................................................79
vi

Acknowledgements

Early drafts of this Handbook benefited from research and writing provided by Evan Bing 

Sawyer and Amber Himes-Cornell. We thank them for helping us get this project off the ground. 

We especially thank Marian Macpherson, Tom Gleason, and Sean Roberts for their patient and 

careful review of all legal aspects of this document.

This paper has been immensely improved by multi-layer review process involving all U.S. 

Fishery Management Councils and key national and regional NOAA and NMFS personnel. 

NOAA Office of General Counsel: 

Scott Farley, Josh Fortenbery, Tom Gleason, Caroline Park, and Sean Roberts. 

NOAA Paperwork Reduction Act Clearance Officer:

Sarah Brabson

Fishery Management Councils: 

In addition to overall comments from each Council, several individual staff members provided 

detailed comments on specific sections: José Montañez, Brandon Muffley, James Seger, 

Rachel Feeney and Chris Kellogg. We also received comments from members of the Science 

and Statistical Committee of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council and of the 

Caribbean Fishery Management Council.

NMFS social scientists: 

Matthew Cutler, Stephen Kasperski, Andrew Kitts, Michael Jepson, Kirsten Leong, Karma 

Norman, Christina Package-Ward, Matthew McPherson, Patricia Pinto da Silva, Suzanne 

Russell, Scott Steinback, Brent Stoffle, Marysia Szymkowiak, and Sarah Wise.

Office of Sustainable Fisheries: 

Tara Scott and Marian Macpherson at the national office and Michelle McGregor and Sally Bibb 

regional offices. 

NEPA Office: 

Steven Leathery, Antoinette Divittorio, and Susan Staehle in the national office and regional 

coordinators Ariel Jacobs and Shelby Mendez.
vii

Acronyms

ACL Annual catch limit

ACS American Community Survey

AHE Affected human environment

AM Accountability measures

CEQ Council on Environmental Quality

CSVI Community Social Vulnerability Indices

DAS Days at sea

EIS Environmental impact assessment

EO Executive order

FEP Fishery ecosystem plan

FMP Fisheries management plan

IFQ Individual fishing quota

ITQ Individual transferrable quota

LAPP Limited Access Privilege Programs

MSA Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

NEPA National Environmental Policy Act

NMFS National Marine Fisheries Service

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

OMB Office of Management and Budget 

OWB Objective well-being

PRA Paperwork Reduction Act

RFA Regulatory Flexibility Act

SIA Social impact assessment

TAC Total allowable catch
viii

Abstract

As United States fisheries managers develop and modify fisheries management plans that set 

catch limits for the Nation’s commercially important fish stocks, the importance of including and 

weighing the social impacts associated with changes in management has gained increasing 

attention. In recognition of the potential for social impacts, social impact assessments have 

been made a requirement of the overall environmental impact assessment process under the 

National Environmental Policy Act. To date, there has not been a standardized way of 

conducting and presenting a fisheries social impact assessment (SIA). In addition, there is a 

need for a template that incorporates existing data streams and identifies potential new sources 

of information while being applicable to a wide range of fisheries management decisions. The 

objective of this Handbook is to provide technical advice for NOAA Fisheries and fishery 

management councils to streamline the SIA process while fully capturing relevant social 

impacts. The Handbook provides a primer on SIA in fisheries, the purpose of an SIA, key 

elements that should be included in SIAs, and common types of social impacts associated with 

particular management measures. It also reviews the legal requirements for conducting SIAs 

and provides a set of best practices and analytical tools for conducting SIAs. In addition, it 

describes the relationship of this Handbook to NMFS Guidance for Social Impact Assessment.
1

I. Introduction

Marine fisheries Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in the U.S. is required by law1 and 

enacted by each of eight regional Fishery Management Councils (Councils), with oversight from 

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and final approval by the U.S. Department of 

Commerce. While overall these Councils perform the same functions (creating Fishery 

Management Plans (FMPs) and updates thereto), the process for creating these FMPs and their 

content will vary somewhat across fisheries and Councils. At least in part, this is due to speciesbased, social, and economic differences in the fisheries present in each region, as well as

regional differences in preferred fishery management techniques. In addition, in some regions 

SIAs are prepared solely by NMFS social scientists, in others solely by Council staff, and in yet 

others by NMFS and Council staff in coordination, including sometimes through the use of 

contractors. The specific person or people charged with writing the SIA will therefore vary by 

region and/or action. For example, in the Northeast Region it is common for Councils to have 

groups composed of Council staff and NMFS staff who help to research and write up draft 

language for regulatory changes proposed by the Councils. To assure quality, regional 

representation, and legal accuracy, this document has been reviewed by: all NMFS social 

scientists who conduct SIAs, staff from all eight Fishery Management Councils, NMFS regional 

and national National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) specialists, NMFS national and regional 

staff from the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, and NOAA General Counsel.

Nonetheless, periodic updates to the referenced laws and policies can occur, so it is 

important to keep in contact with regional NEPA Coordinators. For instance, on September 14, 

2020, a new rule from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) became effective, which 

updated CEQ's regulations for implementing NEPA (85 Fed. Reg. 43304, July 16, 2020). As a 

result of this rule, NOAA and NMFS will update their NEPA procedures to reflect the changes in 

the NEPA regulations. The NOAA NEPA Coordinator issued the first NOAA interim guidance 

on September 14, 2020. The NOAA NEPA Coordinator will update that guidance and issue 

additional interim guidance, as necessary. In addition, NMFS intends to issue NMFS-specific 

interim guidance, including guidance relevant to the NEPA process for actions under the MSA. 

Please reach out to your regional NEPA coordinator and regional General Counsel for updates 

and with any questions.

II. What is the purpose of this Practitioner’s Handbook?

This Practitioner’s Handbook for Fisheries Social Impact Assessment (hereafter, 

the Handbook) focuses on Social Impact Assessment for U.S. marine fisheries, though 

much of the basics would apply to any SIA. As United States fishery managers develop 

and modify FMPs and fishery ecosystem plans (FEPs) that implement management 

 1 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (see more on this below) and National 

Environmental Policy Act (see more on this below).
2

actions to protect the Nation's fish stocks, part of the process, required by law, includes

weighing and describing the social impacts of these regulatory actions2

. The recognition 

that fisheries resource management affects not only the resource, but also the resource 

users and their communities, highlights the fact that fisheries are (among other things) 

social in nature. An SIA “provides information to agencies and communities about social 

and cultural factors3 that need to be considered in any decision; provides a mechanism 

for incorporating local knowledge and values into the decision (including local ecological 

knowledge [LEK] and traditional ecological knowledge [TEK]); and can help a decision 

maker identify the most socially beneficial course of action for local, regional, and 

national interests” (ICPGSIA 2003). SIA and other analyses will be written as part of a 

broader Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). As with all EIS analyses, for the SIA you 

will be asking: What are the likely impacts if the proposed regulatory action occurs 

versus if the status quo regulations continue?

By providing a more standardized procedure for producing an SIA, this Handbook will 

further the following objectives: 1) to assure that fisheries SIA writers understand the available 

types of data and how to access them, so SIAs are based on “the best scientific information 

available”4 (per National Standard 2 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and 

Management Act [MSA]);

5 2) to help social scientists who have never conducted an SIA or 

need a brush-up; and 3) to suggest common core components of SIAs. Anyone planning to 

conduct an SIA should first have carefully reviewed the NOAA/NMFS Guidelines for 

Assessment of the Social Impact of Fishery Management Actions (NMFS 2007) before reading 

this Handbook.

This Practitioner’s Handbook for Fisheries Social Impact Assessment is solely a set of 

professional recommendations on how to implement the NMFS (2007) Policy Directive on SIAs 

(PD 01-111-02, linked above). Further, neither of these two guidance documents creates 

enforceable rights or a cause of action under law. However, an SIA provides important 

components of the record, satisfying legal requirements of the MSA and NEPA, and supporting 

NMFS decisions under the MSA. If the information in the SIA is lacking or incorrect, then the 

record supporting the action is flawed and the action itself is vulnerable to legal challenge.

In the end, you are aiming to describe, to the extent they are relevant to the regulation at 

hand and to the extent data are available or can be reasonably acquired in the timeframe of the 

Council action, any of the following that will be measurably impacted: 1. Demographic 

characteristics, 2. Cultural issues of attitudes, beliefs and values (e.g., maintaining a traditional 

“way of life” or traditional ecological knowledge), 3. Effects of proposed actions on social 

support and services, and health and safety issues, 4. Impacts to non-consumptive and 

recreational uses of living marine resources and their habitats (e.g., recreational fishing and 

diving), and 5. Historical dependence on and participation in the fishery by fishermen and 

 2 N.B. This document does not address NOAA obligations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act or 

the Endangered Species Act, though many aspects will be applicable to SIAs generally.

3 In general, cultural practices will be discussed here under the broad mantle of “social factors”. 4 This does not necessarily require collecting new information, but must include sufficient information to 

make an informed assessment.

5 For more context on the connection to National Standard 2, see NMFS (2007:6).
3

communities, including the special social and cultural importance of fishing in tribal and other

indigenous communities (NMFS 2007, Sec. 2.2, p.1, re. NMFS/NOS 2019). You are not 

required to specifically reference each of these five areas. However, you should think about 

these general categories when planning your SIA and looking at likely impacts, based on your 

review of the proposed regulatory actions, the fisheries/fleets involved, and the fishing 

communities that depend on those fisheries.

In addition, you need to consider your available time and resources. In other words, what 

is the timeline for preparation of the SIA? With limited time you may have to rely exclusively on 

a literature review, secondary data, and transcripts from scoping hearings. With more time you 

may be able to conduct phone interviews. Even more might allow for focus groups. If you have 

at least a full year of advance warning that a specific type of amendment will be considered, you 

might be able to plan and implement a survey – and perhaps even design a before/after survey 

that will allow you to assess the accuracy of your predicted impacts and potentially learn of 

impacts you had not anticipated. Generally speaking, however, data gathering projects that 

require long lead times (e.g., focus groups or surveys) should be implemented as long-term 

projects and not attempted in relation to specific Council actions. More information on data 

gathering can be found in section V.b. and Appendix C.

Two key points to remember: (1) Surveys will require following the process laid out in the 

Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). And the PRA applies to any NOAA-funded contracts for 

external companies or institutions to conduct surveys on NOAA’s behalf as well as to Council 

members and staff, who are considered to be federal employees for purposes of collecting 

information from the public, per the Office of NOAA General Counsel (See Appendix C, section 

1 for more detail on the PRA); and (2) Not all Council actions require the same level of analysis.

It will depend on the scope of the action. An EIS for a major amendment implementing a 

wholesale change of the management structure, e.g., to a catch share system, will require more 

time and research than, say, an amendment changing the required mesh size for a particular 

species or species complex. Further, the level of analysis for an EIS differs from that for an 

Environmental Assessment (EA). More on EIS vs. EA can be found below under section IV.

a. Why a Step-by-Step Handbook to SIAs?

The objective of this Handbook is to provide technical advice for NMFS and Council staff 

that streamlines the SIA process while fully capturing relevant social impacts. Conducting an 

SIA is a skill. Those entering a job with NOAA Fisheries or one of the Councils may or may not 

yet have acquired that skill, even if they have a background in social science. This Handbook is 

organized to provide some basic background and then to lead the reader step-by-step through 

the planning, data collection, and write-up stages of an SIA. 

There is also need for a description of existing data streams and potential methods for 

collecting new data in ways that are applicable to a wide range of fisheries management 

decisions. This Handbook provides step-by-step information on making choices about methods 

and data in order to develop a more standardized SIA procedure across federally managed 
4

fisheries, while also allowing for regional and fisheries-specific data structures, innovation, and 

needs.

b. What is the relationship of this Handbook to the NMFS 

Guidelines for Assessment of the Social Impact of Fishery 

Management Actions?

This Handbook is not meant to replace the NMFS Policy Directive6 Guidelines for 

Assessment of the Social Impact of Fishery Management Actions (NMFS 2007). Instead, this 

Handbook responds to the statement in the Guidelines noting: “Individual fisheries and issues 

will call for a range of social factor7 analysis methods and techniques, and selection of these 

tools will require case-by-case judgment. Social factor analysis is an evolving field in applied 

social science and creative applications may be found to fit different fisheries and their 

participants.” This Handbook provides support for making those case-by-case judgments. 

III. Why do we do SIAs? Legal and policy framework

SIA is a tool for gauging the social and cultural consequences of alternative 

management or policy measures. The SIA is used in conjunction with economic and 

environmental impact assessments to facilitate the decisionmaking process. It does so

by identifying, among the management alternatives that will meet the stated goals, those 

with the greatest positive or least negative impacts (Vanclay 2002). For NOAA Fisheries 

(NOAA Fisheries and NMFS will be used interchangeably throughout this document), 

these goals include meeting stock rebuilding requirements and creating positive net 

national benefits.

Legal requirements for conducting SIAs are found in laws passed by Congress and 

Executive Orders created by the President. Failure to fully comply with statutory 

requirements could render the agency’s action vulnerable to legal challenge. An 

executive order is an instrument used by the President to carry out functions of the 

executive office, and, when based on a constitutional or statutory grant of power, it 

essentially has the force of law, except in instances where it is contradicted by other 

federal law, and except that it does not generally create any right or benefit enforceable 

against the United States (Duncan 2010). Policy Directives are “statements of and 

instructions for implementing important, high-level internal direction and positions that 

guide organization decisions and actions.”8 These are internal agency requirements and 

do not have the force of law. However, significant deviation from stated agency policy 

 6 See https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/laws-and-policies/policy-directive-system

7 NMFS (2007:5) defines social factor analysis as “description of the social characteristics of a fishery 

and/or community.”

8 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/laws-and-policies/policy-directive-system
5

could also render an agency action vulnerable to a legal challenge or render a Councilrecommended action subject to disapproval. Below, key laws, Executive Orders (E.O.s),

and policies are discussed, as they form the basis for certain specific topics that an SIA 

must address when prepared in a federal, and especially a federal fisheries, context.

Following this will be a step-by-step guide through the SIA process itself.

a. What laws require SIA?

There are two primary laws that require assessment of social impacts in connection with 

fisheries management actions: the NEPA and MSA. Other laws or sections of laws (including 

the MSA) require targeted social assessments when specific populations are impacted, e.g., 

fishing communities, or under specific circumstances, e.g., the implementation of limited access.

1. National Environmental Policy Act 

NEPA requires that Federal agencies prepare an EIS for every major federal action 

“significantly” affecting the quality of the “human environment” (NEPA sec. 102(2)(C)). If a 

proposed action is not expected to have significant environmental impacts, CEQ’s regulations 

provide for preparation of an EA to determine the action’s significance. Both the EIS and EA 

must address certain factors related to social impacts, and NMFS uses the SIA to accomplish 

this.

CEQ’s regulations define “human environment” as follows:

“Human Environment” means “the natural and physical environment and the relationship 

of present and future generations of Americans with that environment” (40 CFR 1508(m)). 

CEQ’s regulations require that EISs discuss the “environmental consequences” of a 

proposed action and its alternatives (40 CFR 1502.16). This includes the following types of 

“effects:” “ecological (such as the effects on natural resources and on the components, 

structures, and functioning of affected ecosystems), aesthetic, historic, cultural, , social, or 

health effects [emphases added]. Effects may also include those resulting from actions that 

may have both beneficial and detrimental effects, even if on balance the agency believes that 

the effect will be beneficial” (40 CFR 1508(g)). In addition, when the agency determines that 

economic or social and natural or physical environmental effects are interrelated, then the 

environmental impact statement shall discuss and give appropriate consideration to these 

effects on the human environment (40 CFR 1502.16(b)).
6

2. Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA)

The MSA requires consideration of multiple social impact considerations in the 

development of fishery management actions. The record for any fishery management action 

must include documentation that it is consistent with 10 national standards, several of which 

pertain to social factors. In addition, fishery management plans must include 15 mandatory 

components, and may include an additional 13 discretionary components, several of which 

require consideration of social impacts. The MSA also includes special programs that may 

additionally call for consideration of social impacts. The information in the SIA can be used to 

satisfy these requirements. Key provisions are discussed in more detail below.

National Standards.

National Standard 1. Fundamentally, all fishery management actions taken under the 

MSA must provide for achieving “optimum yield” (MSA sec. 301(a)(1)). The MSA defines 

optimum yield (OY) as: 

the amount of fish that will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly 

with respect to food production and recreational opportunities and taking into account the 

protection of marine ecosystems; that is prescribed on the basis of the MSY [maximum 

sustainable yield] from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological 

factor; and, in the case of an overfished fishery, that provides for rebuilding to a level consistent 

with producing the MSY in such fishery (MSA sec. 3(33)).

Thus it is critical that each fishery management action is supported by documentation of 

these considerations. NMFS’s National Standard 1 Guidelines provide additional direction as to 

the recreational and social factors to be assessed:

The benefits of recreational opportunities reflect the quality of both the recreational fishing 

experience and non-consumptive fishery uses such as ecotourism, fish watching, and 

recreational diving. Benefits also include the contribution of recreational fishing to the national, 

regional, and local economies and food supplies (50 CFR 600.310(e)(3)(iii)(A)(2)).

Social factors. Examples are enjoyment gained from recreational fishing, avoidance of 

gear conflicts and resulting disputes, preservation of a way of life for fishermen and their 

families, and dependence of local communities on a fishery (e.g., involvement in fisheries and 

ability to adapt to change). Consideration may be given to fishery-related indicators (e.g., 

number of fishery permits, number of commercial fishing vessels, number of party and charter 

trips, landings, ex-vessel revenues) and non-fishery related indicators (e.g., unemployment 

rates, percent of population below the poverty level, population density), and preference for a 

particular type of fishery (e.g., size of the fishing fleet, type of vessels in the fleet, permissible 

gear types). Other factors that may be considered include the effects that past harvest levels 
7

have had on fishing communities, the cultural place of subsistence fishing, obligations under 

tribal treaties, proportions of affected minority and low-income groups, and worldwide nutritional 

needs (50 CFR 600.310(e)(3)(iii)(B)(1)).

National Standard 3 (MSA sec. 301(a)(3)). National Standard 3 provides for managing 

stocks as a unit. The National Standard 3 Guidelines indicate that management units may be 

organized around a variety of perspectives including biological, ecological, social, or other 

bases (50 CFR 600.320(d)(1)).

National Standard 4 (MSA sec. 301(a)(4)). National Standard 4 prohibits discrimination 

between residents of different states and requires that allocations be, among other things, fair 

and equitable. The National Standard 4 Guidelines set forth factors to consider in developing 

fair and equitable allocations, including:

Economic and social consequences of the scheme, food production, consumer interest, 

dependence on the fishery by present participants and coastal communities, efficiency of 

various types of gear used in the fishery, transferability of effort to and impact on other fisheries, 

opportunity for new participants to enter the fishery, and enhancement of opportunities for 

recreational fishing (50 CFR 600.325(c)(3)(iv)).

National Standard 8 (MSA sec. 301(a)(8)). National Standard 8 requires taking into 

account “the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities by utilizing economic and 

social data that are based upon the best scientific information available...” (MSA sec. 

301(a)(8)). The MSA defines “fishing community” as (MSA sec. 3(17)) “a community which is 

substantially dependent on or substantially engaged in the harvest or processing of fishery 

resources to meet social and economic needs, and includes fishing vessel owners, operators, 

and crew and United States fish processors that are based in such community.”

NMFS’s National Standard 8 Guidelines further clarify that a “fishing community” must be 

tied to a specific location (as opposed to a community of interest such as one based on gear or 

target species). The guidelines also provide extensive guidance on what needs to be analyzed 

to support findings under NS 8, including the following excerpt: 

“FMPs must examine the social and economic importance of fisheries to communities 

potentially affected by management measures. For example, severe reductions of harvests for 

conservation purposes may decrease employment opportunities for fishermen and processing 

plant workers, thereby adversely affecting their families and communities. Similarly, a 

management measure that results in the allocation of fishery resources among competing 

sectors of a fishery may benefit some communities at the expense of others...

... The analysis should assess the likely positive and negative social and economic 

impacts of the alternative management measures, over both the short and the long term, on 

fishing communities. Any particular management measure may economically benefit some 
8

communities while adversely affecting others. Economic impacts should be considered both for 

individual communities and for the group of all affected communities identified in the FMP. 

Impacts of both consumptive and non-consumptive uses of fishery resources should be 

considered” (50 CFR 600.345(c)(1)-(5)).

Further, both qualitative and quantitative data use are specified as important, including, for 

commercial fisheries, “information provided by fishermen, dealers, processors, and fisheries 

organizations and associations.” Similarly, relevant fishing and fishing-related industries and 

groups should be assessed for recreational and subsistence fisheries. Elsewhere, boatyards, 

ice suppliers, and tackle shops are given as examples of directly related fisheries-dependent 

services and industries that may be part of a fishing community.

FMP Mandatory Components

Pursuant to the MSA, FMPs must include a Description of the Fishery that includes 

components that pertain to social concerns:

Description of the Fishery. FMPs must contain a description of the fishery, including, but not 

limited to, the number of vessels involved, the type and quantity of fishing gear used, the 

species of fish involved and their location, the cost likely to be incurred in management, actual 

and potential revenues from the fishery, any recreational interest in the fishery, and the nature 

and extent of foreign fishing and Indian treaty fishing rights, if any (16 U.S.C. § 1853(a)(2)).

b. What are other laws and executive orders relevant to SIA?

A variety of other laws and Executive Orders relate to particular groups or activities within 

the fisheries and may require specific social analyses that would be included in the SIA. Here 

we provide a summary. More detail is provided in Appendix A. E.O. 12898 on Environmental 

Justice requires that federal agencies conduct their programs, policies, and activities in a 

manner to ensure individuals or populations are not excluded from participation in, or denied the 

benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under, those programs, policies, and activities 

because of their minority or low income status. E.O. 12866 on Regulatory Planning and Review 

requires that federal agencies assess the costs and benefits to the Nation of implementing a 

regulation. Regions with tribes will need to follow E.O. 12875 on Enhancing the 

Intergovernmental Partnership and E.O. 13175 on Consultation and Coordination with Indian 

Tribal Governments.

c. What are relevant NOAA Fisheries policy directives?

All NMFS policy directives related to social and economic analysis of regulatory actions 

can be found here.
9

1. NMFS Guidelines for Assessment of the Social Impact of Fishery 

Management Actions

In 2007, the National Marine Fisheries Service updated its Guidelines for Assessment of 

the Social Impact of Fishery Management Actions. This guidance was re-affirmed in 2014 

(NMFS 2007). This document provides an overall introduction to SIAs. In particular, it states, “In 

the context of marine fisheries conservation and management, SIAs focus on the human 

environment of the fisheries. That is, SIAs consider the effects of changes in resource 

availability or fishing practices on fishermen, communities, fishing-related businesses and 

employment, families and other social institutions, regulations and social norms of behavior, and 

cultural values” (NMFS 2007:5). In addition, NMFS (2007) reviews NOAA Fisheries policy on 

SIAs, and discusses how to undertake a social factor analysis, the concept of fishing 

communities, and various special considerations for undertaking an SIA. It provides significant 

assistance for organizing and conceptualizing how an SIA should be developed. As noted 

above, anyone planning to conduct an SIA should first have carefully reviewed the Guidance

before reading this Handbook. Similar to this, though narrower in focus, is the NMFS Guidance 

for Conducting a Review of Catch Share Programs. Where such a review has been conducted, 

it will also be a good source of information about that fishery. More detail on this guidance is 

provided in Appendix B.

2. Other relevant NOAA, NOAA Fisheries, and Executive Branch policy 

directives

There are two key policies on environmental justice: guidance from the White House 

Council on Environmental Quality and the Dept. of Commerce Environmental Justice Strategy. 

For those in regions with tribes, associated policy directives are also critical, such as 

Department of Commerce Consultation and Coordination Policy (2013), which implements 

Departmental Administrative Order 218-8. Also relevant is the Office of Management and 

Budget guidance for E.O. 12866 and Small Business Administration guidance for the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act. The NOAA Policy and Procedures for Compliance with the National 

Environmental Policy Act and Related Authorities provides important information on all aspects 

of NEPA.

9 And the policy directive on Ecosystem-based Management will be useful, as many 

regions are moving to Fishery Ecosystem Plans rather than Fishery Management Plans. See 

Appendix B for more detail on these and other relevant policy directives. Finally, the NOAA 

 9 On July 16, 2020, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) promulgated regulations changing the 

procedures for complying with NEPA. All actions in progress prior to the rule’s effective date of 

Septemebr 14, 2020, may proceed under the old guidance. Federal agencies have 1 year in which to 

revise their procedures and bring them into the compliance with the new rules. NOAA and NMFS will be 

developing new guidance. Consult with your region’s NEPA Coordinator to stay informed about new 

developments.
10

Fisheries and National Ocean Service Guidance and Best Practices for Engaging and 

Incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Decision-Making (NMFS/NOS 2019) is 

important in any area with tribal or indigenous fisheries. Note: This guidance and best practices 

document deals solely with “TEK associated with indigenous peoples, as distinguished from 

‘local ecological knowledge’ held by long-time residents in an area, or long-term participants in 

an activity or industry.”

IV. Where within an Environmental Impact Statement are social 

impacts discussed?

The Environmental Impact Statement is mandated by NEPA for applicable major federal 

actions that are anticipated to result in significant impacts to the human environment.

10 The 

MSA similarly mandates a Fishery Impact Statement for an FMP or amendment, to assess the 

likely effects of any FMP or amendment on participants in applicable fisheries and fishing 

communities.11 In practice, the information and analyses in the EIS generally cover both 

requirements. There are two primary sections in an EIS where data on social factors is found: 

the Affected Human Environment (AHE) section and the Impact Assessment sections. There 

may be separate social and economic impacts sections, or all impacts (social, economic, 

biological, ecological) may be discussed together in sub-sections based around each measure 

in the regulatory action. In addition, economic impacts are important to social assessments 

because of concomitant social impacts or because of social factors that influence, e.g., the 

conduct of commerce. Below we further describe the differences between the AHE and the SIA 

and their connections to the Economic Impacts section of the EIS.

We also note that actions that are not anticipated to result in significant impacts to the 

human environment and for which the agency does not have an applicable categorical exclusion 

(CE), require only an EA, not an EIS. To clarify, the CEQ regulations for implementing NEPA, at 

40 CFR 1508.9, state that an EA is a concise public document prepared by a Federal agency to 

aid an agency’s compliance with [NEPA] and support its determination of whether to prepare an 

[EIS] or a [FONSI] ... (40 CFR 1508.1(h)). The requirements for an EA, as stipulated by CEQ 

regulations at 40 CFR 1500-1508, are less prescriptive than those for an EIS. It need only 

“briefly” discuss the purpose and need, alternatives, and the environmental impacts (40 CFR 

1501.5(c)). However, all types of required analysis under NEPA, and resource categories 

potentially affected by the proposed action, must still be addressed -- including SIA and 

environmental justice.

 10 For certain actions, a federal agency can satisfy NEPA by applying a Categorical Exclusion or 

preparing an Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), as applicable. 

Speak to your NEPA Coordinator for more details.

11 For additional details about the requirements for Fishery Impact Statements, see MSA § 303(a)(9) (16 

U.S.C. § 1853(a)(9)) and section II(a)(2) above.
11

a. SIA versus Affected Human Environment (AHE) section

The AHE describes the baseline status of the fishery (whether commercial, recreational, 

subsistence, or some combination) before implementation of any new regulations included in 

the action, including both social and economic information, as well as basic descriptive data 

such as landings, value, and number of permits by permit category, and indicators such as local 

and regional quotients (LQ and RQ) and/or NOAA Fisheries Community Social Vulnerability 

Indicators (CSVIs). The SIA, on the other hand, analyzes and describes the likely changes, due 

to the alternatives under consideration, to the social fabric of the fishery. This includes activity 

and place-based community-level impacts, and takes into account relevant cultural aspects. 

These changes will vary based on existing capacities and vulnerabilities within the fishery 

and the fishing communities (as understood from the CSVIs and other indicators listed above), 

as well as the management alternatives.

In the SIA you are comparing the conditions in the fishery at the time when the regulatory 

action in question is proposed to: (a) the expected status of the fishery if the regulatory action is 

put in place versus (b) the expected status of the fishery if no action is taken (the status quo 

alternative). In making this assessment, the SIA will reference or summarize some stage-setting 

or background information from the AHE. The SIA analyst may write sections of the AHE or the 

AHE may be prepared by Council staff with some consultation by the social and economic 

impacts analysts. Further, for social impact assessments under NEPA, the analysis should be 

based on the entire affected region and society, not the fishery in isolation. This is one reason 

(in addition to National Standard 8, discussed below) why we also assess impacts to the 

broader fishing communities.

b. Social versus Economic Impact Assessments

Because both the social and the economic impact assessments use some of the same 

data, it is important to understand how the two assessments are different.

12 At the most basic 

level, social impacts are anything linked to a public or private action (though here we are 

concerned only with federal actions) that affects or concerns a specific group of individuals. 

Those impacts, for fisheries SIA, may include alterations to fishing or processor or dealer 

routines, cultural norms, community or fishing vessel social relationships, local political 

organization, fishermen or fishing community health and well-being, and personal and property 

rights (or privileges, as U.S. quasi-property rights to fish are legally defined) (re. Vanclay 2003, 

 12 There are three primary types of economic impact assessments: 1) A general assessment that parallels 

the SIA, the Economic Impacts section of the EIS, 2) the Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis which may 

include elements from the Economic Impacts section, and 3) the Benefit-Cost Analysis required under 

E.O. 12866 which is both provided separately from the EIS and also included in the EIS, often within the 

Regulatory Impact Review (RIR) or Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA). Here we are comparing the SIA 

to the Economic Impacts section.
12

Vanclay et al. 2015, NMFS 2007).

13 Specific data items may or may not be relevant to a given 

regulatory action, already available, or feasible to obtain for various of these factors. More on 

this in section V.c.3.

The SIA will frequently employ or reference some economic data. Predicting changes to 

occupational opportunities and community infrastructure, for instance, is in part dependent on 

the analysis of economic impacts. However, “[w]hile SIAs focus on social and cultural values 

and systems [related to the economy], economic impact assessments focus on market and nonmarket values and systems” (NMFS 2007:5), including impacts to firms, fleets, and industries.

Further, impacts to market and non-market values, in turn, have social impacts for individuals, 

households, communities, and other social groups.

V. You are beginning work on an SIA: What do you do?

First your regional Council will have identified a problem that it thinks could be ameliorated 

via regulatory action and possibly also some ideas on types of regulatory actions that would 

solve the identified problem. “The typical FMC [Fishery Management Council] process for 

development of a management recommendation usually involves an iterative process with the 

public in which one or more early versions of a draft fishery management measure and 

environmental analysis (i.e., draft EIS or draft EA) are shared, commented on, and modified 

over the course of several FMC meetings prior to a final FMC vote” (NOAA 2017b:C9). For 

these iterative versions the Council will have requested analyses of the issue(s) to identify or 

clarify the underlying causes for the identified problem. 

Analysts, including you, will respond to these requests. Here you begin initial identification 

of likely outcomes and impacts of the different options. In the early stages you will provide input 

on possible social impacts or likely responses of different categories of fishermen and other 

stakeholders to these possible regulatory actions, based on your knowledge of the region or 

your knowledge of social science and the fisheries social science literature. If you have read this 

Handbook beforehand, that will help, though at the beginning you may spend a lot of time just 

listening and absorbing. As you become familiar with the fishery and the issues, you will flesh 

out the SIA in more detail, discussing the alternatives and their differing types and/or levels of 

impact (and usually contributing some tables and discussion to the AHE).

An SIA is context-specific and addresses all issues relevant to the people involved and the 

ways their livelihoods and ways of life will be impacted (NMFS 2007). This means you need to 

figure out what the issues are and who will be impacted. You begin with the type(s) of regulatory 

actions being considered. This section is a useful reference to help identify the types of impacts 

that you should consider and inform the relevant data you will want to seek for your fishery. On 

its own, it will not tell you the type or level of impact for any given action, but it can be used as a 

prompt to make sure that the breadth of potential social impacts is comprehensively examined.

Remember that for social impact assessments under NEPA, the analysis should be based 

on the entire affected region and society, not the fishery in isolation. In a fisheries context, this 

 13 The ICGSIA (2003), to which NMFS contributed, similarly states that agencies need to address the 

aesthetic, historic, cultural, economic, social, or health effects which may be direct, indirect, or cumulative.
13

could potentially include the accumulated impacts of the regulation in question, previous and 

concurrent regulations in the fishery in question, impacts in other fisheries that participants in 

this fishery also participate in, and the impacts of other non-fisheries regulations or societal 

forces such as a downturn in the economy. The appropriate boundaries for the analysis should 

be carefully considered, however, because if the boundaries are defined too broadly, the 

analysis could become unwieldy, and if they are defined too narrowly, significant issues may be 

missed. 

a. What is the regulatory action?

Social impacts should be analyzed based on the types of management actions that are 

being proposed. Such changes may be administrative changes (like changing rules about 

paperwork) or regulatory (like changing rules about how and when fishing occurs). Below,

potential impacts are reviewed for the following common regulatory actions for fishing activity: 

allocations; closed areas and/or seasons; gear changes; days-at-sea; catch limits; limited 

access/entry; and catch shares (including Limited Access Privilege Programs, or LAPPs). A list 

of types of management included under the term “catch shares” can be found in the NOAA 

Catch Share Policy (NOAA 2017a). See Table 1 below for a summary of common impacts for 

each listed regulatory action category. Not all impacts marked as related to a particular 

regulatory action will occur, but these are typical categories to begin with when looking for 

potential impacts. Section V.b., below, discusses how to know who in the fishery in question 

might be affected and where and how to find relevant information on those groups (including 

fishing communities). On its own, this section will not tell you the level of impact for any given 

action, but it can be used as a prompt to make sure that the breadth of potential social impacts 

is comprehensively examined. Keep in mind, as well, that the particular context of the fishery 

you are assessing may create unique impacts or variations on the impacts described here.

1. Allocations

To allocate is to distribute between groups. In fisheries one common allocation by a Council is 

the division of the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) or Annual Catch Limit (ACL) between 

commercial and recreational fisheries. Allocations to many types of subsistence or customary 

use groups are handled at a higher level by treaties, though some indigenous group access 

may be through Councils, e.g., Fishery Ecosystem Plans in the Western Pacific Region (see 

more under V.b.3.v, below). The balance of allocations between commercial and recreational 

fisheries is often contentious, and may be complicated by sub-allocations across geographic 

areas. Because allocations ultimately affect income for both commercial and recreational 

vessels (private and for-hire),14 there is a cascade of possible social impacts, including to job 

 14 For hire vessels include both charter and party/head bosts. Charter boats generally charge a flat fee for 

a trip (regardless of the number of passengers), but they are only licensed to carry a maximum of 6 

passengers per trip (so are often called "six packs"). Head boats (party boats) mostly charge per person 
14

satisfaction (Pollnac and Poggie 1988, Gatewood and McCay 1990, Pollnac and Poggie 2006, 

Pollnac et al. 2012), time with family, and other impacts. For recreational anglers the loss is 

generally connected more to angler satisfaction (Holland and Ditton 1992, Beardmore et al. 

2014). However, also see Wilde et al. (1998) on motivations for sportfishermen, and NorrisRaynbird (2004) and Colburn et al. (2015) on motivations of for-hire captains. All of these can

have follow-on effects to shoreside commercial businesses (e.g., dealers, processors, 

boatwrights, gear manufacturers) and recreational industries (e.g., marinas, bait-and-tackle 

shops, hotels, and restaurants). See Jacob et al. (2013a) for more on the social impacts of 

allocations. For more information on allocation processes, see the NOAA Fisheries Catch Share 

Policy, and the related Fisheries Allocation Review Policy.

2. Closed areas/seasons

Closed areas and other forms of management that are designed to reduce fishing effort in 

a particular area (including Marine Protected Areas, Habitat Areas of Particular Concern, Marine 

Monuments) can take many forms and have many purposes (Liu et al. 2018). Closures that are 

temporal as well as spatial, such as seasonal closures, identify and protect discrete areas 

during periods of high species density or during a vulnerable life history stage. Closed areas are 

also employed as a way of reducing the catch of non-target species by closing areas according 

to temporary or seasonal shifts in non-target species location. Other closures, including Marine 

Protected Areas (MPAs), may be long-term in response to target-species declines. There is also 

a wide variation in the acceptance of area closures among stakeholders based on the intended 

goals (e.g., reduce bycatch, protect spawning aggregations, protect essential fish habitat) and 

duration (temporary, seasonally recurring, or permanent) (Pita et al. 2010), as well as whether 

LEK was used in creating the spatial and temporal parameters. The difficulty in defining the 

social impacts of closed areas is inextricably tied to their variability and differences in how they 

are perceived by stakeholders (Pomeroy et al. 2007). MPAs may help provide long-term food 

security, especially with regard to sedentary species that remain within the borders of the 

designated area, though local fishermen may experience a relative decrease in catch per unit 

effort and an increase in the cost associated with fishing due to avoiding that area (Mascia et al. 

2010). Fishermen may, however, find area closures to align better than other management 

measures with their cognitive mapping of the ocean (Clay 1996, Olson 2006, St. Martin and 

 

and can legally carry people up to the maximum capacity approved for the vessel - which is usually much 

more than 6 people. The lines can be blurry, however, as charter boats may charge per person and head 

boats may charge a flat fee. Thus, the clear distinction is vessel capacity - vessels licensed to carry 6 or 

fewer (charters) and those licensed to carry more than 6 (head boats). More broadly, a charter boat is 

frequently hired by a group of anglers for a fishing trip. If no one hires the boat for a specific trip on a 

given day, the boat may not leave dock. Often there are very specific species that the anglers want to 

target. A party boat or headboat is more likely to go out on a regular schedule, with individual anglers 

hiring a place on the boat. There may be some minimum number of anglers required for the trip to take 

place, but it is still a regular trip that anyone can join by paying the per-head fee. There is also often a 

broader acceptable range of target fish, many times for food.
15

Table 1. Examples of social impacts that fisheries management changes may produce

Social impact Closed 

areas

Gear 

changes

Days at 

Sea

Size 

Limits

Catch 

limits

Trip 

Limits

Limited 

Access

Catch 

shares

Relocation of fishing grounds/ 

displacement of fishing effort

X X X X X

Increase/decrease crowding X X X X X X

Increase/decrease gear conflicts X X X X X

Increase/decrease in CPUE X X X X X

Increase/decrease in food security X X X X

Increased cost to participate in 

fishery

X X X X

Change to family and community 

life

X X X X X

Increased/decreased safety at sea X X X X

Relocation of fishermen and 

processing facilities

X X

Change economic and social 

structure of community

X X X

Change in job/angler satisfaction X X X X X X X X

Change in composition and 

character of fleet

X X
16

Change in composition of fishing 

support services

X X X

Opportunity to expand fishing 

efforts

X X X

Pressure to keep up with 

competition

X

Ability to preserve way of life X X X X X

Increased criticism of government 

or perception of overbearing 

government

X X X X X X X X

Changes in occupational 

opportunities/consolidation

X X X

Changes in discarding of 

marketable fish

X X X X X

Increased/decreased fishing 

season

X X

Change in relationship between 

fishermen and the supply chain

X X X
17

Olson 2017). MPAs can also impact nearby fishing communities, in both positive and negative 

ways (Mascia et al. 2010).

Closures can affect both commercial and recreational fishermen. One of the direct 

consequences of an area closure is the change in fishing behavior as fishermen (commercial 

and recreational) attempt to adjust to the lack of access to a closed area. For commercial 

fishermen, Murawski et al. (2005) show that the shift in otter trawl fishing effort associated with 

seasonal and year-round groundfish closures off the Northeast United States was highly 

concentrated to the borders of those closed areas. This shift in effort is an attempt to “fish the 

line,” which has been shown to be part of an optimal fishing strategy capitalizing on the 

biological “spillover” from a closed area (Kellner et al. 2007). Because closed areas displace 

some fishing effort rather than simply reducing it (Halpern et al. 2004), they can lead to

concentration of effort localized at the boundaries of closures that in turn can cause crowding 

and gear conflicts among fishermen (Suuronen et al. 2010). Less mobile fishermen may bear a 

heavier burden as they are less able to easily switch out of closed areas, or into reopened 

areas. This would reduce effort, unless small boat effort is replaced by large boat effort -- which 

would have distributional impacts. A change in fishing behavior that attempts to employ a more 

mobile fishing strategy will have additional social costs such as likely disruptions to family and 

community life, as well as a potential decrease in safety at sea. Recreational and commercial 

fishermen may incur social costs such as loss of a traditional fishing site. During seasonal

closures, fishermen will target other species, which may involve gear changes or changes in 

timing or duration of trips. Changing gear and duration may have economic impacts, especially 

for commercial fishermen whose gear costs may be quite high. They may also have economic 

impacts on restaurants that feature local species, leading to additional economic and social 

impacts to fishing communities. Seasonal closures may also have cultural impacts if they affect

the supply of species that are important staples of the local cuisine, a preferred food source, or 

have cultural or spiritual importance to local tribes or other indigenous peoples (Donkersloot et 

al. 2020b, Carothers et al. 2021). Recreational fishermen may be more likely to switch species 

than gear. Changes in time spent at sea can have impacts on family time and other social 

activities for both commercial and recreational fishermen. All this can lead to economic and 

related social impacts for shoreside businesses. These impacts affect both the business owners 

and the employees. Other negative social impacts of a closure can include starting a derby 

fishery that results in landings that are too high and occur over too short a time period, leading 

to lower prices and/or unharvested quota.

However, positive outcomes from selectively opening closed areas may include increased 

revenue, number of fishing trips, and number of usable days-at-sea or fishing days.15 Closed 

areas can also be implemented and adjusted specifically for reasons that have positive impacts

on fishermen, such as to alleviate gear conflicts, as was the case with Framework 22 to the 

Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan in New England. The Framework required 

certain areas be closed to either mobile or stationary gear during certain time periods. As noted 

in the Final Rule (Federal Register Vol. 62, No. 46 / Monday, March 10, 1997 / p.10747): “The 

framework measures build upon the emergency action and provisions of the Council’s voluntary 

industry agreement. The measures in this rulemaking were selected from among other options

 15 Days-at-sea is a specific management tool. Fishing days are simply days that a vessel is able to be on 

the water.
18

because they are relatively less controversial, as evidenced by the near unanimous support of 

the Council.”

3. Gear restrictions

Switching between different fisheries by changing gear types is one of the most common 

adaptive strategies that commercial fishermen employ (Acheson 1981). However, limited 

access and catch shares (discussed below) have often led to greater specialization in species 

and therefore gear. There are two types of gear restrictions considered here: requirements for

gear configuration (e.g., mesh size, hook type, trawl or dredge width) or type (e.g., nets, hooks, 

dredges, traps) and restrictions on the amount of gear deployed (e.g., limits of numbers of traps

or nets, or total bans on the use of a particular gear). Both types of gear restrictions aim to alter 

the selectivity of a particular sector (e.g., fishery, vessel size) and to control the effort in a 

fishery. 

Restrictions on gear configuration can be used to prevent overfishing of stocks. In a trawl 

or set net fishery, incorporating a minimum mesh size as a gear restriction is an attempt to 

increase the selectivity of the gear and increase the escapement of smaller species. Additional 

bycatch reduction technologies incorporated into a fishing gear can also alter selectivity, avoid 

capture of non-target species (including protected resources such as sea turtles), or facilitate 

their non-lethal release (Campbell and Cornwell 2008). Some bycatch technologies can impact 

target catch levels (Ward 1994, Pascoe and Revill 2004, Brewer et al. 2006, Larsen et al. 2018), 

though this is not universal (Avery et al. 2017, Chavez and Willard 2017, Vasapollo et al. 2019). 

Restrictions on types of gear can also be deployed to protect habitat; these are generally aimed 

at bottom-tending gears such as trawls and dredges (Collie et al. 2017, Pitcher et al. 2017,

Barnette 2001, Kaiser et al. 2000, Auster et al. 1996). Requirements to modify or change gear 

have economic impacts that can be especially burdensome for small and/or owner-operated 

vessels, creating concomitant social and cultural impacts for fishing communities that may 

already be socially vulnerable or highly engaged in fisheries affected by the restrictions.

Restrictions on amount of gear deployed also aim to limit catch, though discussions of 

such measures can backfire. Fishermen may rush to add more gear or move from part-time to 

full-time, to maximize fishing history in hopes of being “grandfathered” in should limits be 

imposed. In addition, some fishermen who did not originally follow this path may eventually feel 

obliged to increase their total amount of gear as a reaction to the pressure of competition with 

other fishermen that did increase their gear. Commercial fishermen believe in the importance of 

equity (Acheson 1981, Davis 1991, Durrenberger 1997, Pooley et al. 1998, Olson 2006, 

Pinkerton 2013, Bennett et al. 2020). But they also have a tradition of “highliners,” who are the 

most successful fishermen and therefore earn more than the average, thus acquiring social 

status as successful fishermen (Sinclair 1983, Acheson 1988, Brown 2010, Jenkins 2010: 

endnote 10). Acheson (1988:52) notes, however: “The prestige enjoyed by highline fishermen is 

especially great if they adhere to other valued community norms and goals.” Keeping up with 

the competition can also help maintain the community’s social structure by maintaining relative 

income and associated relative social status.
19

Gear restrictions can also be used in commercial fisheries with specific social 

consequences in mind. When implemented as a means of preserving a “way of life,”16 gear 

restrictions can protect specific socially or culturally-valued sectors of a fishery (e.g., smaller 

owner-operated vessels) who would not be able to successfully compete in a race to add gear. 

However, gear restrictions can also cause conflict within a fishery, as the restriction may be 

seen as hindering the technological innovation of some while providing preferential protection to 

others. Fishermen who are above the “ceiling” of a restriction may feel that their competitive 

advantage is hindered and that the restriction unfairly benefits those beneath it. Restrictions like 

these can also force different segments of a fishery to “meet in the middle,” creating a more 

uniform fishery and impacting social structure and social status. Again, this involves the 

conflicting goals of equity and highlining.

Like many management regulations, gear restrictions that specify how fish are caught may 

be perceived as overly restrictive and a sign of too much government involvement. The 

perception of an overbearing government is matched by a sense of frustration caused by 

increasing regulatory limits on effort. In general, fishermen want to maintain their own catch per 

unit effort even if limits are placed on overall effort; however, this is frequently not feasible from 

a management perspective, leading to increasing frustration on the part of fishermen (Smith 

1980). But no impacts are universal; the specifics of the regulation are important. Such 

restrictions can increase labor and time to fill out an economically viable trip, or provide greater 

trip revenue where there is a combination of a vessel fish limit (e.g. 50 fish) and a size limit. At 

the same time, these restrictions can create greater harvest opportunity over time (greater total 

harvests) resulting in more community benefits, food production, and income. Thus there may 

be an issue of immediate pain for later gain, with larger and more capitalized vessels frequently 

best positioned to last until the later gains kick in.

Reduced discards due to gear modifications are often considered a positive impact, as 

commercial fishermen find it very frustrating to be required to discard fish due to bycatch or total 

catch limits. This is especially true if the fish are unlikely to survive release. A gear change to a 

more selective form of gear can also make other fishing regulations, such as species size limits, 

redundant. Avoiding the need to discard as many fish in the first place is a positive impact. Time 

previously spent in discarding prohibited fish can also be redirected toward catching more of the 

target species, improving efficiency and the bottom line (Villasante et al. 2016). A gear 

specifically designed to limit bycatch (including of protected species) is called a bycatch 

reduction device (Ward 1994, Robins-Troeger 1994, Brewer et al. 2006). It may lower the 

volume (Bisack17), but potentially improve the quality (Brewer et al. 2006) of directed species 

catch. There may also be increased bycatch discard of co-occurring species that do not have 

economic value, but do take space in the hold from target species. 

For recreational fishermen, gear limits include required use of rod and reel or hook and 

line, different hook types, and minimum/maximum hook sizes. Depending on the species sought 

 16 See Mederer (1999), Van Ginkel (2001), Brookfield et al. (2005), Kelty and Kelty (2011), Sowman and

Sunde (2018) on the phrase “way of life” as used in fisheries social science. Also see Pollnac and Poggie 

(2008) for a related discussion.

17 Bisack, Kathryn. Personal comm. Protected Species Economist, Social Sciences Branch of the Northeast 

Fisheries Science Center. Woods Hole, MA 02143.
20

and the source of angler satisfaction for that species (e.g., size of fish vs. number of fish), hook 

size limits may or may not have a substantial impact on angler or for-hire captain satisfaction 

(see references under V.a.1., Allocations).

4. Fish size limits

Size limits on fish for commercial fishermen may be imposed through gear regulations, 

discussed above, or direct limits (e.g., commercial size limits in the West Coast salmon troll 

fishery). Commercial fishermen often fish for a particular size that fits the market they serve,

e.g., plate-sized fish or a large fillet. Especially for deepwater fish, anything brought up that is 

too large is almost always dead by the time it’s brought on board and fishermen feel wasteful 

throwing it back. For recreational fishermen, hook type or size (see V.a.3., above) may be 

employed, but fish of the wrong size may simply be caught and released, or discarded if dead 

(depending on individual fishery regulations). In recreational fishing, the impacts would be to 

satisfaction for anglers who want to catch a larger fish for bragging rights (even if it is then 

released), sport fisherman who are looking to win tournaments with the largest fish by weight or 

length, for-hire captains who are seeking to make their customers happy (see references under 

V.a.1., Allocations) -- and to anglers who count on bringing fish home to eat, especially to those 

that may be better categorized as subsistence fishermen (Steinback et al. 2009) or noncommercial fishermen (Leong et al. 2020).

5. Trip, time-period, and possession limits

Certain size categories of vessels or categories of permit holder may be restricted to 

specific maximum pounds or numbers of fish per trip or week, or month -- or specific 

frequencies of trips. Total weight limits are generally associated with commercial fisheries, while 

limits on numbers of fish (often known as “bag limits”) or length of individual fish are generally 

associated with recreational fisheries.

In commercial fishing, this may incentivize more fishing trips per day, week, or month for 

that species, in order to land a desired or required amount of fish. Resulting impacts may 

include less onshore time for family or other activities, including community activities, or fishing 

in more dangerous weather with impacts to health and safety. When trip limits are landing limits 

(rather than catch limits), in multispecies fisheries they may result in increasing discards, with 

the attendant socio-economic effects discussed above. Alternately, fishermen may fish more of 

another species, potentially requiring gear changes and/or different patterns of fishing. These 

can also impact onshore time and may require additional expenditures, with concomitant 

impacts. Trip limits may also impact processors, who may require a specific amount of a 

particular species at a time to make processing that species profitable. Processors will 

sometimes switch to other similar local species, but they may also switch to imported fish. This

may affect fishermen’s ability to sell their catch in the short-term, or even their long-term

marketing relationships with processors for that species. This would have economic and social 

impacts for fishermen and processors, including combined impacts for communities that are 

both ports of landing and sites of processing plants. 
21

In recreational fishing, angler impacts would be to angler satisfaction (see references 

under V.a.1., Allocations) and to anglers who count on bringing fish home to eat, especially to 

those that may be better categorized as subsistence fishermen (Steinback et al. 2009). Charter 

boats may lose income if anglers are less likely to take trips for certain species of fish. However, 

while bag limits may decrease the quality of the experience for a particular angler trip, by 

extending the season they may allow more total angler participation (both on private and charter 

vessels), thus increasing angler satisfaction. Extension of the season and greater total angler 

participation is also likely to provide benefits to local communities and help sustain the broader 

industry.

6. Days-at-Sea

Days-at-Sea (DAS) management attempts to control the overall effort in a commercial 

fishery by limiting the amount of time a commercial fisherman/vessel may fish. When coupled 

with an overall catch limit, however, DAS can lead to overcapitalization as fishermen buy larger 

vessels to catch more fish within the restricted time period (Hilborn 2007), unless companion 

regulations limit upgrades (re. Rossiter and Stead [2003:284]). They can also lead to safety 

issues from fishing in bad weather to take advantage of all available fishing days. DAS may also 

be implemented for limiting overall catch or discards. Sometimes DAS may be leased or 

stacked (where a single owner with two or more vessels combines the DAS from all the vessels 

onto one). There are usually restrictions on when this can happen and/or who is allowed to do 

so. Determination of the number of DAS for a vessel may be based either on its annual average 

of days fished during a specific set of years or by categories such as vessel size or gear type. 

Issues can arise (in the design phase or during appeals processes that may be available) over 

complaints of miscounting of historical days fished, especially for small vessels and/or small 

ports, with appeals potentially resulting in increases in DAS for some vessels. On the other 

hand, assignment of DAS by category can favor vessels that historically fished fewer than the 

allocated DAS for their assigned category, while negatively impacting any vessels in any

category that historically fished more days. These are similar to issues that can arise in catch 

share systems over quota share amounts, which are often based on historical catch records. 

While DAS involve an allocation, they are not considered a catch share because they do not 

allocate a portion of the catch. 

7. Overall catch limits

Catch limits may be simply an overall limit for the fishery, or a subset of the fishery, with 

individual fishermen limited either by input methods (e.g., restrictions on gear or trip length) or 

by output methods (e.g., the amount of fish removed or landed). See Morison (2004) on issues 

in defining input and output controls. Such overall catch limits may be referred to as a TAC/ACL. 

When a fishery exceeds the catch limit, a management response may be triggered. For 

example, fishing may be halted until the end of the fishing year. Or, fishing may continue in the 

current year, with either (1) the final amount overage taken out of the following year’s TAC or (2) 

with a new and more restrictive TAC set for that following year, or (3) the imposition of any other 
22

appropriate measures such as gear restrictions and area closures. Typically, the TAC is set 

according to scientific recommendations and based on some interpretation of the basic 

management objective (e.g., to exert a specific fishing mortality, or to maintain the stock at (or 

return it to) maximum sustainable yield), together with the biological information on the current 

stock abundance (Gulland 1984). In the U.S., there is now a statutory requirement to set an 

ACL, which may not exceed the level recommended by the Council’s Scientific and Statistical 

Committee (SSC), must prevent overfishing, and must be accompanied by Accountability 

Measures (AMs). The NS1 guidelines describe AMs as management controls that prevent the 

ACL from being exceeded, or correct or mitigate overages of the ACL if they occur.18 If a fishery 

approaches the ACL, specific in-season AMs may be implemented to prevent the ACL from 

being exceeded. If an ACL is exceeded in a given year, AMs must be implemented as soon as 

possible to correct the operational issue that caused the ACL overage, as well as any biological 

consequences to the stock as a result of the overage. Without complementary management 

tools for commercial fishermen (e.g., gear restrictions, catch limits instead of landing limits, or 

species size limits) and for recreational fishermen (e.g., bag and/or size limits), fisheries 

management that is based on a TAC or ACL can cause an increase in regulatory discarding 

once the catch limit for a given species has been reached. Fishermen interviewed by Rossiter 

and Stead (2003) complained that their current management based on catch limits forced them 

to discard marketable fish. Fishermen felt that an alternative management system based on 

effort (see V.a.6., DAS) would allow them to retain those fish and reduce their discards. In some 

cases, a very restrictive quota on a common bycatch species can limit fishermen’s ability to fish 

their target species. That bycatch species is then often referred to as a “choke” species 

(Baudron and Fernandes 2015, Mortensen et al. 2018). 

Within the context of a catch share program, fishermen may try to work around this by 

buying additional quota, though if too many individuals are seeking to buy, the price increases.

This means less capitalized enterprises, including many owner-operated vessels, may be priced 

out of the market. This, in turn, can lead to targeting other species, if feasible, or simply to not 

fishing for certain periods of time or in certain areas. All of these have economic and social 

impacts. Alternatively, fishermen may establish “risk pools” that can mitigate financial (and 

therefore some social) risk (Holland and Jannot 2012). 

8. Limited access and limited entry

Limited access can cover a range of management rules for commercial fisheries, “from 

simple restricted permit programs and limited entry schemes to more detailed transferable quota 

and effort programs” (Pooley et al. 1998:1), some of which we would now define as catch 

shares (see below). Limited access contrasts with open access, and “derives from the earlier 

 18 Under the MSA, in order to set an annual catch limit, first an acceptable biological catch (ABC) is 

determined; this is a level within which a catch limit may be set and is based on a control rule that 

accounts for scientific uncertainty. The ABC should support maximum sustainable yield (MSY) within the 

fishery. MSY is connected to the MSA term optimum yield (OY) as follows: OY is defined as MSY “as 

reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor” (16 U.S.C. §1802(33)). And in practice, 

OY is often assumed to be equal to MSY.
23

term limited entry which referred to license limitation programs. Limited entry meant controlling 

the total number of fishing vessels, fishermen, or equipment in a fishery” (Rettig and Ginter 

1978). Because many fishermen, especially those who operate at small to medium scales, 

engage in traditional “annual rounds,”19 they may be less likely to qualify for limited entry/access

than vessels exclusively targeting the species in question, when entry is based (as is frequent) 

on historical landings. This can, in turn, disrupt annual rounds and push such fishermen into a 

smaller number of fisheries, leading to less ecosystem-based patterns of fishing (Stoll et al. 

2016). The heavier dependence on fewer species also means greater economic risk in the 

event that one of those species undergoes a poor recruitment year. Farr et al. (2018) find that 

this increased specialization can also degrade the quality of LEK possessed by fishermen, just 

as LEK becomes more relevant as we move toward managing ecosystems, not simply fish.

9. Catch shares

A catch share in the U.S. is a form of rights-based management, though legally it is not a 

full property right but a revocable privilege. Per the NOAA Catch Share Policy (2017:8):

“Catch share” is a general term for several fishery management strategies that allocate a 

specific portion of the total allowable fishery catch to individuals, cooperatives, 

communities, or other entities. Each recipient of a catch share is directly accountable to 

stop fishing when its exclusive allocation is reached. The term includes specific programs 

defined in law such as "limited access privilege" (LAP) [established in 2007] and 

"individual fishing quota" (IFQ) programs, and other exclusive allocative measures such as 

Territorial Use Rights Fisheries (TURFs) that grant an exclusive privilege to fish in a 

geographically designated fishing ground.

These types of management programs are set apart from other, more traditional, forms of 

management because they confer a greater level of “ownership.” There are three principal types 

of allocations under LAPPs, as described in MSA § 303A: allocations to an individual person or 

entity; allocations to a community; and the grouping of individual and/or community allocations 

under the umbrella of a regional fishing association (see Stoll and Holliday [2014] for more 

details, and Wingard [2000] on community allocations). 

In the United States, catch share programs use both individual allocations and allocations 

to groups and entities. These include IFQs and Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs),

20 each of 

which can be granted to both individuals and entities. (Hereafter, we will refer simply to IQs 

rather than differentiate between IFQ and ITQ.) Allocations can also be made to entities such as 

processors (Pautzke and Oliver 1997, Matulich 2009, van Putten et al. 2011, Fina 2011),

fishermen organized as corporations and LLCs, fishing cooperatives, and fishing communities.

 19 Because smaller vessels have a more limited geographic range, a common strategy involves fishing 

multiple species across the course of a year as seasonal ecosystem changes bring different fish into the 

traditional grounds of these fishermen, as well as targeting the species that seem healthy while taking a 

break on species that have a low recruitment year.

20 Though initially these were differentiated in that ITQs were transferrable while IFQs were not, this 

distinction has largely become null because many IFQs are now transferable.
24

In the Northeast, “sectors” in the groundfish fishery receive allocations annually based on the 

individual catch histories (Potential Sector Contributions) of that year’s members.21

In general, catch shares have (1) resulted in consolidation, (2) changed the dynamic 

between fishermen and the supply chain, (3) changed the employment structure of crews, and 

(4) may have improved safety (Pfeiffer and Gratz 2016, Knapp 1999, though cf. Windle et al.

2008). Following initial allocations, there is considerable consolidation as those who receive 

small allocations and/or have less capital find themselves to be no longer profitable and lease or 

sell their quota to those seeking more, leaving only the most efficient (or most heavily 

capitalized) vessel owners. This leads frequently to the creation of owners and renters, “sea 

lords” per McCay (2012), who in relation to their crew are much like shareholders and 

sharecroppers on land (Hersoug et al. 2000, Olson 2011, Griffith 2018). In some cases, these 

vessel owners no longer fish themselves (or may never have fished), increasing the probability

that wealth associated with the catch share privilege may leave the communities where 

fishermen live (Olson 2011) -- which may be ports, but also include nearby towns.22,23 Quota 

privileges may also tend to redistribute ACL out of the control of certain social groups, such as 

Alaska Natives (Carothers et al. 2010, Donkersloot et al. 2020a). While some catch share 

programs do restrict use, transfer, and ownership in an attempt to maintain the character of the 

fleet, these are not always successful (Szymkowiak and Himes-Cornell 2015). Catch shares 

also often lead to increased costs of entry, making it difficult for young people to enter the 

fishery (Volz 2005, Christensen et al. 2009, Pinkerton and Edwards 2009, van Putten and

Gardner 2010, Lynham 2013). The ability of fishermen to choose when they fish under IQs may 

change the dynamic between fishermen and processors. Fishermen can wait to harvest their 

quota when the price is best and they may have more choice of where they sell their fish. For 

example, they are no longer limited by which processors have the capacity to process the glut of 

fish associated with a derby. Longstanding social relations between processors and fishermen 

(Wilson 1980), the number of processors within a reasonable distance of the fishing grounds, or 

additional regulatory actions may, however, mitigate this freedom to choose. Safety may 

improve as fishermen shift from the competitive “race to fish” to longer seasons and as less 

economically profitable vessels (often older, less safe vessels) are retired. Windle et al. 

(2008:707), however, found that where there are leasing or certain other agreements between 

fishermen and processors or other companies, safety may instead be compromised. Lastly, 

fishery employment patterns generally change: the number of active vessels and crew positions 

drop dramatically, crew may be transitioned from being paid in shares to salaries, and crew time 

off to engage in other jobs or activities is often reduced due to longer seasons (Olson 2011). For 

more detail on the range of potential social impacts from catch shares, see Olson (2011), Lord 

(2011), Colburn et al. (2017), and Griffith (2018). 

 21 Those in the Northeast Region should be aware that the Multispecies Sectors Program, while a catch 

share, is not a LAPP (for more on this see Clay et al. 2014 and Colburn et al. 2017) and therefore is not 

governed under section 303A of the MSA.

22 Movement of fishermen away from the coast can also be associated with gentrification (Colburn and 

Jepson 2012).

23 Of course, the wealth associated with the fishery is more extensive than just that associated just with 

quota shareholders, and the connection of these other accumulations of wealth to the community might 

not be altered by the quota share program.
25

Finally, it is also important to remember that all of the impacts discussed here in section 

V.a. are relative to an existing situation and practitioners will need to consider the status quo 

regulations to determine the direction of effects. In other words, would the negative or positive 

impacts be greater with the proposed changes than if no new regulations were introduced?

b. Whom does the regulation affect?

Assessment of impacts begins by (1) looking at the specifics of the regulation, (2) 

assessing likely social and cultural impacts, and then (3) connecting to the results of the 

economic impact analysis. The type of regulation will give you a sense of the kinds of social 

impacts that might occur (see above). The economic analysis may help you to discern those 

impacted more severely economically, and those economic impacts will have their own 

associated social impacts that must be considered in addition to direct social impacts. So it is 

important from the beginning to coordinate with the economist working on your EIS. Both longterm and short-term impacts of any particular management measure may be negative or 

positive (and large or small). 

Social impacts of fisheries management actions vary depending on which social groups 

one analyzes. However, the key groups to study for social impacts of fisheries can be divided 

into those experiencing what economists would call direct versus indirect versus induced 

impacts of the regulations. Those directly impacted may include commercial, recreational, and 

subsistence fishermen, and minority and low-income fishing populations. Those indirectly 

impacted may include commercial and/or recreational fishing-related shoreside business

owners. Induced impacts affect even the non-fishing residents of a fishing community and local 

businesses that are not involved in fishing. The following describes common potential social 

impacts on each of these groups, though it is organized by fisheries/fleets, fishermen, and 

fishing communities. Also see Pollnac et al. (2006) for helpful information.

1. Fisheries/Fleets

Changes to current regulations may primarily impact, for example, those in certain permit 

categories, with certain size categories of vessels, fishing with certain gear, or fishing in certain 

areas. Analyzing fishery/fleet groups requires landings databases and sometimes observer or 

other regional databases (e.g., in the Northeast, when a regulation is related to mesh sizes or 

dredge lengths this information is found in the observer databases). Specific permit categories 

may be added, eliminated, or have their status changed in some way, e.g., increasing the trip 

limit, decreasing the allowed days-at-sea, switching to a limited access or catch share status. 

Smaller vessels, as noted above, may be more impacted by the introduction of closed areas, 

limited access, and catch shares. Regulatory actions may specifically target vessels using nets 

by increasing the required mesh size, or pots/traps by limiting total numbers an individual may 

have in the water at any one time, or trawls/dredges by declaring certain areas of sensitive 

bottom habitat off limits. Implementation of limited access or catch shares may exclude or 

severely limit fishing by vessels that do not meet the identified qualifying criteria. To begin, 

determine which of the three main types of fishermen will be impacted: commercial, 
26

recreational, and/or subsistence.

24 Any or all of these may also overlap with tribal or indigenous 

groups, of which the federally recognized tribes are a special category that requires working 

with NMFS Regional Offices. If you are working on a measure that impacts federally recognized 

tribes, talk with your supervisor before proceeding.

2. Fishermen

There are three primary categories of fishermen: In some regions the subsistence fishing 

is on purely non-federal fisheries and does not fall under NOAA Fisheries’ purview. In others, 

subsistence fishing may be associated primarily with tribes or other indigenous groups, and may 

be referred to as customary use fishing. Fishing by tribes and indigenous populations will 

require familiarizing yourself in detail with the laws, guidance, and procedures related to these 

groups. Seek out regional experts and the NOAA Tribal Liaison at NOAA Fisheries 

headquarters. See also Appendix A and Appendix B. Yet a third category of wholly or partly 

subsistence can be found among recreational fishermen who depend on eating all or part of 

their catch (Steinback et al. 2009) and those engaged in “non-commercial” fishing (Leong et al. 

2020). Be aware that some fishermen may be involved in two, or even all three, categories.

Moreover, any one proposed management action by itself may have long- or short-term 

impacts on either the recreational or commercial sector, or both. In some locations there may 

also be impacts to subsistence fishing, either directly or through impacts to those in the 

recreational sector who may rely on the fish they catch for subsistence purposes. It is also 

important to remember cumulative impacts: social impacts may be more severe or threatening 

to the sustainability of fishing communities when considering the entire suite of proposed 

management actions and other state and regional fishery regulations and community changes. 

The totality of these management actions could be severe enough to dislocate a substantial 

number of fishermen, dealers, and related industries and cause changes to the economic and 

social structures of communities. If this occurs, when the stocks are rebuilt there may not be a 

fishing industry in place that is structured or has the expertise to take advantage of improved 

fishing conditions for each species for which reductions in catch were originally implemented. 

However, such phenomena might also occur should adequate corrective action not be taken 

immediately and a continued drop in a fish population occur, resulting in more stringent 

management measures in the future.

i. Commercial

The social impacts of fisheries management measures will depend on multiple factors, 

including the species being managed, the geographic area where the fishery takes place, the 

relevant fleet-based group characteristics, the levels of social vulnerability and fishing 

dependence for the place-based fishing communities where the fishery is commonly landed (as 

 24 NMFS does not have an overarching definition of subsistence fishing. However, under the Alaska 

Subsistence Halibut program it is defined thusly: "Subsistence halibut is halibut caught by a rural resident 

or a member of an Alaska Native tribe for direct personal or family consumption as food, sharing for 

personal or family consumption as food, or customary trade."
27

measured by indicators and other methods described below in section V.c.), and any relevant 

cultural characteristics of the fishermen and communities associated with the fishery. And 

remember that not all impacts are negative. There could be significant, long-term social benefits 

from management measures that end overfishing. When overfishing on these species is 

stopped and biomass is rebuilt, models predict that the fish stocks will be of such an amount 

that fishermen will be able to expend less effort to land the same or similar poundage of fish as 

they land currently. Similarly, short-term impacts of regulations designed to end overfishing may 

be positive or negative (and large or small). 

Furthermore, impacts will be different on captains versus crew, and hired captains versus 

owner-operators. On most commercial fishing vessels worldwide (Acheson 1981), once the 

catch is sold, the profits are allocated in shares to the owner and crew. Often “the boat” (owner) 

is paid first and then shares go to each crew member. Crew with special skills (e.g., mechanic, 

or captain – if the captain is not owner) often receive a slightly larger share than other crew. But 

everyone earns more when more fish is caught. Cutler et al. (2017) found that most crew in the 

Northeast U.S. receive shares. Guillen et al. (2017) note that while most crew worldwide still 

receive shares, crew remuneration systems may also vary according to the state of exploitation

of the resource. The crew payment method can change, however, under certain management 

systems. Under catch shares, for instance, there has often been a shift from shares to wages 

for crew (Olson 2011). Further, under many (but not all) catch share systems only the vessel 

owner can receive quota, as quota is often allocated on the basis of pounds or dollars of fish 

brought in by a vessel, with the resulting allocation going to the vessel owner. For more on crew 

and catch shares see section V.a.9. On catcher-processor vessels there are both fishing crew 

and processing workers. Even when crew are paid shares, processing workers usually receive 

wages. More generally, any regulation that requires cost cutting can affect crew jobs directly 

through fewer positions on boats or indirectly through postponed maintenance that can impact 

the safety of both captains and crew.

Another difference is between vessels where crew are primarily kin (and the whole vessel 

may operate as an extended family enterprise) versus vessels where crew and captain are 

unrelated (Norr and Norr 1978, McCay 1978, Acheson 1981). The prevalence of crew being kin 

varies to some extent by cultural groups. In the U.S. it has been found, for example, among 

Alaska Natives (Mishler and Mason 1996, Donkersloot et al. 2020b), Portuguese crews in New 

Bedford, MA and Italian crews in Gloucester, MA (Doeringer et al. 1986), “Slav” fishing crews in 

California and Washington (Pomeroy and FitzSimmons 2001), and Vietnamese crews based 

along the Gulf of Mexico (in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida; MayfieldJohnson et al. 2019) and in California (Orbach and Beckwith 1982). These are examples, not an 

exhaustive inventory.

ii. Recreational

As with the commercial sector, the long-term benefits of ending overfishing and rebuilding 

overfished stocks to the broad group of recreational fishermen (anglers) in a region is hard to 

predict. As less is generally known about the social structure and aspects of the recreational 

sector, it is even more difficult to predict what future conditions may be and how recreational 

fishermen will benefit from more healthy stocks. It is expected that with increasingly healthy 
28

stocks, recreational anglers will catch more fish per trip, and thus reap the benefit of increased 

angler satisfaction. However, similar to the situation with the commercial fishery, the 

composition of the recreational sector and associated industries may adjust during the recovery 

period such that the same individuals and entities that bear the short-term adverse impacts may 

not receive the future benefits. As with commercial fishermen, impacts to the recreational sector 

will vary across sub-sectors, in this case: private anglers vs. for-hire vessels (charter boats and 

party/head boats), private boats, and shoreside anglers. There are also distinctions between 

traditional anglers vs. sport fishermen (see Norris-Raynbird 2004) vs. subsistence fishermen 

who may be tribal or indigenous people, but may also be classed as recreational -- though they 

also depend on catching fish for food (see Steinback et al. 2009). Another way to analyze 

impacts to recreational fishermen may be women vs. men (Gaynor et al. 2016). Within the forhire sector there are also differences between charter vessels (that carry 6 or fewer anglers) 

and party vessels (that may carry more than 6 anglers). Steinback and Brinson (2013:Table 6) 

report for the Northeast that 97% of charter boats and 64% of head boats were owner-operator 

vessels. Interestingly, despite the high level of captain-owners in charter fishing, most charter 

owners in the Northeast have other jobs, earning about 17% of their total annual gross income 

from charter fishing (Steinback and Brinson 2013:Table 7). Party/head boat owners, on the 

other hand, earn about 70% of their total annual gross income from head boat fishing, as these 

boats generally require a much higher level of investment (ibid). About half of the charter boats 

employ one crew-member for the spring/summer/fall season (about 6 months). The other half 

are generally smaller charter boats that employ no crew members. Owner-operated head boats 

generally employ 2+ crew members. Those that employ a captain would also hire 

approximately 2+ crew members during the season (about 6 months). Typically, hired captains 

receive a set paycheck per trip. Non-captain crew members (i.e., mates) typically make most of 

their money from tips for assisting clients and filleting fish, in addition to a low base wage.

Interestingly, an analysis of New York and New Jersey commercial and for-hire fishermen 

in the wake of Hurricane Sandy found commercial fishermen in the sample were, on average, 

more experienced and more likely to have fishing as a primary occupation than for-hire 

fishermen (Seara et al. 2016), though they had similar ages. This may suggest for-hire 

fishermen enter the profession later in life. “Also, for the majority of fishermen in the for-hire 

sector, fishing was not a primary source of income, while for most commercial fishermen the 

opposite was true” (ibid., p12; though cf. Steinback and Brinson 2013 above). Further, 

perception of adaptive capacity to disasters was, for commercial fishermen, associated with 

their ability to stay in fishing, while for-hire fishermen overall were much more willing to look for 

non-fishing work. Interestingly, within the for-hire category the group that resembles NorrisRaynbird’s (2004) category of “traditional” for-hire captains was closer in response to 

commercial fishermen than to other for-hire fishermen. This category comprises those with 

longer term involvement in fishing and whose livelihoods depend on the activity mostly or 

entirely, and thus matches more closely the characteristics described by Steinback and Brinson 

(2013) for party/head boats than for charter boats.
29

iii. Subsistence

NMFS has no general definition of subsistence. However, the federal halibut fishery has a 

subsistence category: "Subsistence halibut is halibut caught by a rural resident or a member of 

an Alaska Native tribe for direct personal or family consumption as food, sharing for personal or 

family consumption as food, or customary trade." More generically, Macinko and Schumann 

(2007:593) have described four different, at times conflicting, definitions in usage within different 

bodies of academic literature (see also Steinback et al. 2009 and Leong et al. 2020 for some of 

the complications in defining subsistence): 

fishing for livelihood rather than profit (definition 1); fishing where catch is distributed 

through non-market mechanisms, regardless of the economic level of the fishermen 

(definition 2); fishing undertaken to support traditional exchange structures, whether or 

not it is done in the context of a market economy (definition 3); or fishing characterized 

by its cultural significance, whether it is a community or an individual activity (definition 

4). 

Subsistence fisheries often support community well-being through food security and 

cultural importance. In fact, especially in cases of cultural importance, subsistence fishing is so 

important fishermen may subsidize their fishing with income from a paying job (Veltre and Veltre 

1983:185-193; cf. Natcher 2009:88 on subsistence hunting; also see Kruse 1991:324-325 on 

why subsistence activity persists in the face of available wage income). There are also often 

interactions between subsistence fisheries and commercial fisheries. For example, in the Bering 

Sea where subsistence salmon fisheries are crucial for the health and well-being of Alaska

Native communities in Western Alaska, there are conflicts with the commercial pollock fishery 

that has historically caught salmon as bycatch. Conflicts between subsistence and other fishing 

sectors can cause cascading effects throughout subsistence fishing communities that affect 

every part of their way of life (Donkersloot et al. 2020a).

3. Fishing Communities 

All regions should analyze at the level of place-based communities and assess their 

relative economic and social dependence on fishing and related industries. Analyses at the 

place-based community level are important because since place-based coastal “fishing 

communities,” as defined under the MSA, require specific examination under MSA National 

Standard 8 (also known as the “communities standard”) (see III.a.2., above; see also Clay and 

Olson 2008 and Rowan 2009). Currently, only the Western Pacific Region has officially defined 

its MSA “fishing communities.” However, fishing communities have long been acknowledged in 

the academic literature as a key element of fishing culture (McCay 1978; Clay and Olson 2007, 

2008; Bodin and Crona 2008; Donkersloot et al. 2020b), In addition NMFS, through the NMFS 

Guidelines for Assessment of the Social Impact of Fishery Management Actions, “has provided 

operational guidance relative to social and community impacts to Regional Fishery Management 

Councils since 1991” (NMFS 2007:4), long prior to the creation of an MSA definition of fishing 

community in 1996 (via the Sustainable Fisheries Act). For simplicity, the remainder of this 
30

document will use the term “fishing community,” unless otherwise specified, to mean both an 

MSA fishing community and in its generic definition as a community involved in fishing.

Sometimes the AHE will define primary and secondary communities that are expected 

overall to be most impacted by a regulation. These can be defined based on various techniques 

described under section V.c., Organizing your analyses by these sub-groupings can be helpful, 

in addition to reporting simple overall landed pounds or value by community.

As noted above, within fishing communities there are certain sub-groups of importance 

beyond the fishermen, including (1) fishery-dependent shoreside businesses, (2) the broader 

community that is not is not directly connected to the fishery but nonetheless may be impacted, 

and (3) for analyses of environmental justice, minority and low-income residents. Once you 

know, based on the proposed regulations and the economic analyses, the distribution of 

impacts across fleet-based groups, you can begin to figure out in which communities these subgroups are found in the highest concentrations. Also see Pollnac et al. (2006) for helpful 

information. Within the academic literature, Clay and Olson (2007) suggest:

A number of important themes nonetheless emerge from the literature that appear

relevant for artisanal and industrial fisheries, and widespread geographic locations: 

(1) a certain level of visible connection to the industry (boats, gear, fishing-related 

businesses) and other infrastructure elements; (2) connections among on-land and 

at-sea networks25; (3) the frequent role of kinship in the labor process; (4) multiple 

household- and family-level ties to fishing (with many fishermen, different 

generations, and gendered fishing-related tasks); and (5) the frequent persistence 

of a sense of a cultural connection to fishing through changes from small-boat to 

large-boat, family to industrial, commercial to recreational fishing and even to 

fishing-related tourism that involves little actual fishing activity. The infrastructure 

variable appears especially important, as seen from the perspectives of both 

fishermen (Jacob et al. 2005; Olson and Clay 2001; Robinson et al. 2003, 2005) 

and researchers (Hall-Arber et al. 2001:3, Hall-Arber 2007, Ingles and

McIlvaine-Newsad 2007).

While place-based fishing communities must be examined, for some analyses it may make 

sense to also sort data by, e.g., port of landing by trip, most common port of landing for each 

vessel in a given year, the port where the vessel docks when not fishing, or the town where the 

owner lives. One or more of these options will be available in all regions, from either landings 

databases or permit databases. Be aware that the port where the vessel docks when not fishing 

and town where the owner lives may or may not be the same community. Where they are 

different, this may be due to gentrification (see Colburn and Jepson 2012) that forces fishermen 

to move away from the waterfront or individuals who maintain their permits as an income source 

after retirement and leave the community. Or it may be related to the permit owner being the 

quota holder, but not the vessel’s owner. The likelihood of one or another of these combinations 

 25 On this point, also see St. Martin (2001, 2006) and St. Martin and Olson (2017).
31

will vary by fishery and by region. The range of options that are available to you varies by 

region. 

Through literature reviews, conversations with fishermen, or other sources, you may also 

already be aware of certain fisheries or fishing-related occupations being associated now or in 

the past with specific social or cultural groups, as noted under Commercial Fishermen in section 

V.b.2.i.

i. Fishery-Dependent Shoreside Businesses

There are three sets of infrastructures in this category: those related to commercial fishing,

those related to recreational fishing, and those related to subsistence fishing (which may 

overlap with either commercial or recreational fishing, or both (re. Steinback et al. 2009, Leong 

et al. 2020)). In each case, fishing operations/fishermen and shore-based support infrastructure 

are interdependent (re. Clay and Olson 2007, 2008; for subsistence fishing see also 

Donkersloot et al. 2020a, 2020b and Carothers et al. 2021). All fishermen depend on the 

existence and condition of a variety of support businesses to maintain their fishing activities. 

Likewise, the owners of fisheries support businesses rely on the health of fish stocks and 

success of the fishermen for their own well-being. As such, the impacts of fisheries 

management measures on fisheries support businesses are also important to consider in SIAs 

(per National Standard 8 and the National Standard 8 Guidelines). Businesses related to 

commercial fishing that fall under this category include: dealers, processors, canneries, 

chandleries, boatyards, net makers, commercial docks, compressed air filling stations (where 

scuba fishing is common), and ice vendors. Businesses related to recreational fishing that fall 

under this category include bait-and-tackle shops and marinas. For indigenous subsistence 

fisheries key infrastructure may include fish camps and traditional sites for setting nets (re. 

Carothers et al., 2021). Any reduction in landed product or location of landing can affect 

shoreside business infrastructure, business owners, and employees of these businesses. 

Regarding infrastructure, Brewer et al. (2004:16) note the importance of both quantity and 

location of infrastructure in the northeast U.S., and of the critical ties infrastructure placement 

may create between communities:

The Gloucester Community Panel identified infrastructure essentials for an active fishing 

port (Robinson et al. 2003, 2005). The Panels Project has found, however, that some 

fishing communities do not have all of the requisite elements in their own community and 

must go to a larger fishing port (hub port) to obtain the required services. This may make 

the dependent ports more vulnerable, having less direct influence on the community upon 

which they rely but do not live. Moreover, federal regulations require fisheries managers to 

analyze socio-economic impacts on place-based fishing-dependent communities (National 

Standard 8 of the Sustainable Fisheries Act), but do not necessarily take into account the 

networks of dependency between the hub ports and their satellites.

The Panels project, as described in Hall-Arber (2007:148), involved establishing community 

panels “in six fishing ports in Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Each panel was 

comprised of 10 to 12 individuals, a cross section of harvesters, processors, shoreside business 
32

owners, and other members of the fishing communities. The panels identified issues of concern 

to their ports, and with the help of coordinators and the principal investigators, gathered data 

through interviews and focus group meetings, then drafted and reviewed reports. The project 

was successful in addressing topics of immediate concern in the region such as the impacts of 

changes in fishery management plans, particularly on fishing industry infrastructure.”

ii. The Broader Community

Non-fishing or non-fishing-related businesses are still impacted because they benefit from 

the social and economic contribution of fisheries to the local economy, services, and 

infrastructure, as well as the social, economic, and cultural benefits of, e.g., working waterfronts 

and fishing-related museums, and tours. For example, the presence of fishing activity in a 

community may provide the population or economic base that makes operating a grocery store 

or maintaining a school in the community possible. Or if large numbers of fishermen in the 

community have a reduced/increased income, that could affect the local tax base. 

Local/state/federal employees/contractors may be affected (e.g., electronic monitoring may 

displace observers). Consumers that desire regionally/locally sourced seafood could also be 

impacted, as could local seafood restaurants. Buyers at local farmers markets could also be 

affected (e.g., the impact of electronic fish ticket requirements and West Coast trawl catch share 

requirements for first receiver licenses). Not all of these will need to be addressed in any single 

regulation, and maybe none of them will, but it's best to start by thinking broadly and then 

narrow in.

iii. Minority and Low-income Populations

There are specific federal requirements under Executive Order 12898 for consideration of 

impacts on minority and low-income populations in federal decisionmaking. (See Appendix A for 

more on the law and Appendix B for two key policy directives.) These populations must be 

identified and fully considered in any SIA (NMFS 2007:6). The White House Council on 

Environmental Quality (CEQ) Guidance on Environmental Justice under NEPA defines the key 

terms from E.O. 12898 (pp. 25-27) as follows:

Low-income population: Low-income populations in an affected area should be identified 

with the annual statistical poverty thresholds from the Bureau of the Census' Current 

Population Reports, Series P-60 on Income and Poverty. In identifying low-income 

populations, agencies may consider as a community either a group of individuals living in 

geographic proximity to one another, or a set of individuals (such as migrant workers or 

Native Americans), where either type of group experiences common conditions of 

environmental exposure or effect.

Minority: Individual(s) who are members of the following population groups: American 

Indian or Alaska Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black, not of Hispanic origin; or 

Hispanic.

Minority population: Minority populations should be identified where either: (a) the 

minority population of the affected area exceeds 50 percent or (b) the minority population 
33

percentage of the affected area is meaningfully greater than the minority population 

percentage in the general population or other appropriate unit of geographic analysis.

As noted earlier, some fisheries are focused around cultural groups. This can include 

groups defined as minorities, who should be particularly noted in terms of any environmental 

justice concerns, e.g., the Black Gullah Geechee fishermen in the Carolinas (Hoskins-Brown 

2020) and other Black fishermen in the Mid-Atlantic menhaden fishery (Garrity-Blake 2005),

Alaska Natives (Donkersloot 2020a, Carothers et al. 2021), Vietnamese (Asians) along the Gulf 

of Mexico (Mayfield-Johnson et al. 2019) and in California (Orbach and Beckwith 1982), and 

indigenous Hawai’ians (Pacific Islanders) (Leong et al. 2020). Processing plants may largely 

employ members of the listed minority groups or low-income populations (e.g. Moberg and

Thomas 1993, Selby et al. 2001, Garcia and DeCastro 2017). Certain fishing communities may 

also include the population categories listed above, even if the categories are not exclusive to or 

in fact do not include fishermen. The E.O. applies to the fishing community as a whole, not just 

those living there who are involved in the fishery. And as noted above, the broader community is 

also impacted by changes in fishing regulations, even if only at a tertiary level – what 

economists call induced effects. See more on measuring environmental justice in section V.c.3.

iv. Tribes

The United States is home to a significant number of federally recognized Native American 

tribes.26 As sovereign nations, they are privy to a unique and distinctive relationship with the 

federal government compared to states and other entities. There are a number of legal 

requirements that federal fisheries managers must take into account, including respecting the 

rights of the tribes to set their own priorities and make decisions that affect their resources and 

distinctive way of life. In order to successfully meet these requirements, effective and open 

working relationships and regular consultations between fisheries managers and tribal 

representatives are imperative. Tribes are, in fact, equal partners in managing some fisheries 

and are entitled to a portion of the allowable catch in their traditional and customary areas.

v. Other Indigenous Groups

The Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council has codified the inclusion of 

social considerations in Fishery Ecosystem Plans (FEPs). It is the only region that officially 

designated MSA fishing communities through the rulemaking process – as amendments to the 

region’s FMPs, now FEPs (64 FR 19067, 68 FR 46112). Fishing communities in Hawaii are 

defined at the archipelago island scale, with the recognition that individuals who are 

substantially dependent on or substantially engaged in the harvest or processing of fishery 

resources are not set apart from island populations as a whole (Environmental Assessment for 

establishing American Samoa, Guam and Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands 

fishing communities and Environmental Assessment for establishing Hawaii’s communities). An 

omnibus amendment for all FEPs in the region also created a mechanism for including social, 

 26 Currently, there are 573 federally recognized Native American tribes. See 84 FR 1200 (Feb. 1, 2019).
34

ecological, and management considerations in setting Annual Catch Limits (Environmental 

Assessment, 50 CFR Part 665.4). In addition, the FEPs include social and cultural objectives 

that must be considered when developing new rules (e.g., see Objectives 4 and 7 in the FEP for 

the American Samoa Archipelago). All these must be taken into account in the SIA.

For tribal and indigenous people, fishing has millenia-long ties to all areas of life: 

subsistence, culture, spirituality, community, conceptions of self, as well as economy 

(Donkersloot et al. 2020a, 2020b; Carothers et al. 2021). 

c. Organizing your analyses

Multiple factors can be considered in choosing the specific communities to focus on for the 

SIA. Ideally, multiple criteria are used. But the ability to use multiple criteria is based on the 

availability of data, which will vary by region. Minimum types of data to consider are landings, 

value, unique dealers, and number of permits in the fishery of concern. There are also indicators 

that include some or all of these: Fishing Engagement, Fishing Reliance (both from the NOAA 

Community Social Vulnerability Indicators, aka social indicators), RQ, and LQ. Counts of 

processors and other shoreside fishing-related businesses can also be helpful. The Office of 

Science and Technology’s (OST) Fisheries Statistics Division conducts a voluntary Processed 

Products Survey annually.27 OST in 2013 conducted a Recreational Bait and Tackle Economic 

Survey (Hutt et al. 2015).28 Looking to the academic literature and to NMFS, Council, U.S. Fish 

& Wildlife Service, and state reports (sometimes called “gray literature”) can be helpful. There 

may also be relevant studies in your Region. In the Northeast, for example, infrastructure such 

as processing, boatyards, and chandleries29 was identified as increasingly concentrated in a few 

“hub ports,” (Robinson et al. 2003, 200530; Brewer et al. 2004; Hall-Arber et al. 2001; Hall-Arber 

2007; Mt. Auburn Associates 2009; Brown et al. 2017). And the Southeast Region, which 

includes the U.S. Caribbean, conducted a fishery census for Puerto Rico (Matos-Caraballo and

Agar 2011) and for the U.S. Virgin Islands (Kojis and Quinn 2004). In addition, all NMFS regions 

have community profiles and/or community snapshots that provide information on fishing 

communities31. And the NMFS social indicators website is an invaluable source for information 

on social vulnerability and gentrification pressure vulnerability.

 27 It is voluntary it does not necessarily provide a 100% count, but is nonetheless informative. Certain 

confidentiality rules apply to use of the data. Access the database via: 

https://foss.nmfs.noaa.gov/apexfoss/f?p=215:200:4517174670249::::: The query can be limited in terms 

of breaking down data by area, but a custom request can be placed via the comments page: 

https://foss.nmfs.noaa.gov/apexfoss/f?p=215:207:9729124093857::NO:::

28 https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/Assets/economics/Bait-andTackle/documents/RBTES%20Final%20Results%20Flyer%20v8.pdf

29 A ship chandler (or ship's chandler) is a retail dealer who specializes in supplies or equipment for ships, 

known as ship's stores. They supply the crew's food, ship's maintenance supplies, cleaning compounds, 

rope, etc. The advantage of using a chandler is that the captain/crew do not have to find or visit multiple

stores in each port where they land, but can use the chandlery as a one-stop shop.

30 Additional port-based reports for the Northeast Region are available for download at 

http://seagrant.mit.edu/cmss/comm_mtgs/commmtgs.html. 31 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/socioeconomics/fishing-community-profiles
35

 In some cases, data relevant to your SIA may already exist, e.g., in fisheries databases 

or the CSVIs, but in other cases some new data collection may be needed. These new data 

may be acquired by a variety of methods, including literature reviews, semi-structured 

interviews, oral histories, focus groups, and surveys. However, as discussed above, many of 

these will require more time than you have available for the SIA work. (For more detail on data 

collection methods, see Appendix C). Many or all of these data, depending on the regulatory 

action in question, should be described in detail in the AHE and then referenced in the SIA as 

summary data. Note: Before gathering data from any Alaska Native, tribal, or indigenous group,

be sure to consult the best practices described in NMFS/NOS (2019) and talk to your Regional 

Office and the NOAA Tribal Liaison. Individual regions may also have resources on this topic. 

For instance, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has a Community Engagement 

Committee (CEC) with the express purpose of recommending strategies to provide effective 

engagement with rural and Alaska Native communities. Information on the CEC and its 

proceedings is available at http:www.npfmc.org/committees/cec.

To understand the views of fishermen, it can be helpful to attend the Scoping 

Meetings/Public Hearings held when a Council is planning a significant regulatory action. Travel 

funds or other impediments may limit your physical attendance, but the meetings will also be 

recorded and audio files or transcripts will be available upon request from the Council. These 

meetings are held in selected fishing communities throughout the region associated with the 

species or species groups for which a regulatory action has been determined to be necessary. 

These are fora where members of the public (including fishermen, processors, town officials, 

environmental groups, and others) can express their views of likely impacts of the proposed 

action and offer alternatives they would like to see considered.

32 If at all possible, attend all 

these meetings. 

In some cases, scoping is carried out within the context of a single or several Council 

meetings, often in conjunction with a broader solicitation of written public comment. There will 

also be letters and emails submitted for the public record. These can be read through for 

themes or analyzed using qualitative data analysis software such as Nvivo, MaxQDA, Atlas-ti, 

and others. It is important to remember, however, that not all fishermen can afford to take the 

time off and travel to the nearest meeting or feel comfortable writing a letter to the Council. So, 

opinions and data offered in these ways may not represent either a random sample or complete 

coverage of the views of expected impacts that may occur. Thus themes should clearly be 

labeled as from Public Comments and caveated as not a random sample.

Stakeholder interviews are also useful, but only if you have enough time. Some pertinent 

interviews may be also available on the NMFS oral history site, Voices. The Voices staff can 

help you to find any likely relevant transcripts or recordings. Ideally, it is most effective to 

combine data gathered through more than one method, as each method may measure slightly 

different aspects of a given issue or topic. If you do have time, even to spend a week trying to 

conduct a set of phone interviews, see the discussion of semi-structured interviews and oral 

histories in detail in Appendix C, section 5. If your region has existing regular surveys of 

fishermen, in general or in the fishery you are dealing with, those data can also be examined to 

see what might be relevant.

 32 For more on scoping meetings and other procedures related to NEPA, talk to your Regional NEPA 

specialist, as current documentation is in the process of being updated during 2021.
36

The fisheries/fleets involved can be analyzed using your region’s fisheries databases. To 

assess fishing community dependence on the fishery being regulated, there are two primary 

options: (1) using the NMFS fishing engagement and fishing reliance indicators and (2)

calculating regional and local quotients. It is often preferable to do both, as each provides a 

slightly different take on the fishery and its associated communities.

1. Fishing Engagement and Fishing Reliance

These two measures are available for commercial and recreational fisheries (see Appendix 

C, section 4.a for details). Fishing Engagement measures the importance of fisheries to a given 

community relative to other coastal communities in a region. Fishing Reliance is a per capita 

measure of engagement. Fishing Reliance allows smaller communities with small fishing fleets 

to still be represented as having a strong community involvement in fishing if a large fraction of 

their population is involved in fishing -- even if they do not appear heavily involved in the 

absolute terms measured by Fishing Engagement (Jepson and Colburn 2013, Colburn et al. 

2017). These indicators can be developed based on the aggregate of all species landed in a 

community or as individual species/species group Fishing Engagement and Reliance. 

Engagement and reliance are two of the indicators that form the NMFS CSVIs. See Appendix C, 

section 4 for technical details.

2. Regional Quotient and Local Quotient

The RQ is a measure of a community’s contribution to regional landings or value for a 

particular species or species group. It is expressed as a percentage (community landings or 

value of a species or species group divided by total regional landings or value of a species or 

species group). The LQ is a measure of the importance of a particular species or species group 

relative to all species landed in a community. It is expressed as a percentage (community 

landings (value) of the catch share species or species group divided by total community 

landings (value) of all species (Colburn et al. 2017). 

3. How do I assess environmental justice?

The basic environmental justice overview should be provided in the AHE. In the SIA the 

results are used to identify communities already expected to be impacted by a measure or 

measures within the regulatory action that could have additional burdens based on 

environmental justice criteria. In many cases, a particular management action is unlikely to 

change the overall vulnerability of a community. However, even in these cases, for someone 

whose living is impacted negatively by a management measure, living in an already highly 

socially vulnerable community can mean there are fewer resources available for support or 

alternative jobs to supplement any income loss. 

Since there is often some question about how to analyze environmental justice, an 

overview is provided here of a suggested way to structure this analysis. Environmental justice is 

measured at the community level, where a community is “either a group of individuals living in 
37

geographic proximity to one another, or a set of individuals (such as migrant workers or Native 

Americans), where either type of group experiences common conditions of environmental 

exposure or effect.”33 Here we recommend using the fishing communities defined in the AHE as 

primary and secondary communities. 

Indicators of vulnerability for purposes of environmental justice can include but are not 

limited to income, race/ethnicity, household structure, education levels, and age. The main 

focus of E.O. 12898 is to consider “the disproportionately high and adverse human health or 

environmental effects of [an agency’s] programs, policies, and activities on minority populations 

and low-income populations in the United States and its territories...” Some of the indices 

within the NMFS CSVIs can provide useful insights for understanding communities where 

environmental justice may be a concern.

The low-income element of environmental justice can be measured by using the 

Poverty, Population Composition Vulnerability, and Personal Disruption indices of the CSVIs.

The Poverty index includes Percent receiving assistance, Percent of families below poverty 

level, Percent over 65 in poverty, and Percent under 18 in poverty. The Population Composition 

Vulnerability index includes Percent white alone, Percent female single headed households, 

Percent population age 0-5, Percent that speak English less than well. The Personal Disruption 

index includes Percent unemployed, Percent with no diploma, Percent in poverty, and Percent 

females separated. See Table C2 in Appendix C. It is also possible to use simply the Poverty 

index alone or the Percent of families below poverty level, though this covers fewer aspects of 

poverty.

The minority status element can be assessed through the Population Composition Index

described above. It is also possible to use the percent of individuals who are members of the 

following population groups: American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black, 

not of Hispanic origin; or Hispanic – per the Decennial Census. Further, some fisheries and 

fishing-related industries may be known to include individuals of the defined minority or lowincome populations and these should be mentioned at least qualitatively.

More generally, in any case where the use of quantitative or statistical data is 

problematic, another option would be to follow the suggestion of the IWGEJ (Interagency 

Working Group on Environmental Justice) and NEPA Committee (2016:14) to hold scoping 

meetings to discuss levels of minority and low-income populations.

4. How do I assess the social factors relevant to my SIA?

Some of these can be described using simple counts of landings and permits (including 

broken out by relevant permit categories) by community. Other potentially useful datasets

include U.S. Census data, the voluntary NMFS Processed Products Survey, and counts of bait 

and tackle shops created by recreational fishing industry groups. Ask your colleagues for the 

extent to which these are available for your region, and be aware that there are strict rules on

the use of Processed Products data due to confidentiality issues.

 33 Per the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Guidance on Environmental Justice 

under NEPA.
38

One of the most useful tools, however, is the set of NMFS CSVIs. In addition to the 

Fishing Engagement and Fishing Reliance indicators described earlier, there are indicators of 

Social Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability (Colburn and Jepson 2012, Jepson 

and Colburn 2013, Colburn et al. 2017). Social Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure 

Vulnerability represent social factors (Table C2 in Appendix C) that can shape a community’s 

ability to adapt to change (Jacob et al. 2010, 2013b). For instance, if individuals with category A 

permits will be affected, which communities have the most category A permits, and which of 

those communities are most involved in fishing (per LQ, RQ, Engagement, Reliance), and are

socially vulnerable, or are experiencing gentrification pressure? Which communities have the 

most processors located there, dealers buying there, unique vessels landing there? 

While the CSVIs assess at the full community level, rather than the level of the fishing 

population within the community, it is notable that fishing communities from Maine to Texas 

tended overall to have higher levels of poverty and more social vulnerabilities than other coastal 

communities in that same region of the U.S. coast (Colburn et al. 2016), even though within the 

set of fishing communities there is still a broad range of poverty and vulnerability levels. 

Additional detail on all these community vulnerability indicators can be found in Appendix C, 

section 4.

Many of the social and cultural issues can be found in the literature for your region, if not 

always for individual communities. Literature from other regions may also offer ideas to follow 

up on. Changes in social structure, for example, have been found for catch shares and limited 

access in a number of different fisheries and cultures (see section V.a.9. on catch shares, 

above), and these examples from the literature can be applied as potential outcomes of an SIA 

that includes these management measures. There is a literature on safety in fisheries (e.g., 

Knapp 1999, Windle 2008, Jin and Thunberg 2005, Pfeiffer and Gratz 2016) that can point to

possible outcomes of specific types of regulations (some from the catch shares literature and 

some more general, see also V.a.6., Days-at-Sea). There are a number of studies of 

recreational fishing, including the for-hire vessels (charter boats and party/head boats) that 

discuss what impacts are most likely within the recreational sector (see especially V.a.4,5). 

Historical dependence can be assessed through time series of permits and landings, through 

the literature, and by looking at the initial FMP documents for the fishery in question. Semistructured interviews and oral histories, when there is time for these, can also provide social 

and/or cultural data. See Appendix C for more details on acquiring and analyzing data.

5. What about the impacts of climate on management?

Further, another factor that may interact with any of the above are the various impacts of climate 

change as described and measured in, for example, Colburn et al. (2016), Pörtner et al. (2014), 

Griffis and Howard (2012), and Clay et al. 2020. Common impacts include (1) rising sea levels 

and increased hurricane-related storm surge that can impact coastal infrastructure and coastal 

communities, (2) species range changes related to rising sea surface temperature that can 

change how far from home fishermen need to travel to fish, as well as move species beyond the 

range of the Council they are currently governed by, and (3) increasing levels of ocean 

acidification that make it difficult for crustaceans (lobster, shrimp, crab) and especially shellfish 
39

(scallops, clams, quahogs, oysters) to form their shells, impacting their ability to survive. See 

Appendix C, section 4.c. for more detail.

d. Writing it up: What is the format of an SIA?

Depending on the Council under which the fishery is governed, the SIA section of the EIS 

may appear as a single section, be distributed in pieces across the EIS by management 

measure, appear in conjunction with the economic analysis under a header such as “Impacts to 

Human Communities,” or some combination. See Mengerink et al. (2014) for an overview of the 

variety of SIA presentations to be found in EIS documents. Talk with the lead for your EIS 

planning team about what the structure of your EIS or EA will be.34 The structure below will 

allow you to mix and match as needed.

1. Brief discussion of why SIA is required

Begin with 1-2 short paragraphs providing background on laws that require SIA. The major 

laws to mention are NEPA and the MSA. Also make note of National Standard 8 and E.O. 

12898 on Environmental Justice and any relevant policy directives.

2. Brief description of how key fishing communities were chosen

Describe which individual method or multiple methods (discussed in V.c.) that you used to 

make your choices. Include a table of the chosen communities. It may be helpful to divide the 

communities into Primary and Secondary communities based on data used in the selection 

process, e.g., one versus two standard deviations from the mean for numerical indicators and/or 

perceptions data from interviews.

3. Short overview of relevant background data on those communities

Provide a brief overview of important information about the selected communities. Tables 

and graphics of the selection criteria and the Social Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure 

Vulnerability indicators should be included along with short text descriptions of the key points to 

note, e.g., overall similarities, trends over time, individual ports or vulnerabilities that stand out 

for some reason. Include climate vulnerability indicators where available and relevant. Radar 

graphs (see Jepson and Colburn 2013:15-16) and bar graphs with three dimensions (see 

Colburn et al. 2016:295) can help to portray multiple vulnerabilities at a time. But simpler charts 

and tables downloadable from the CSVI website are sufficient.

All or most of this information is usually found in the AHE and simply referenced or 

summarized in the SIA. However, some data tables or graphs may be specific to the SIA and 

 34 Also, discuss the extent to which you are responsible for the AHE.
40

found there or in the proposed-action by proposed-action discussions. Again, coordinate with 

the leader of your planning team.

4. Discussion of the communities and fishery/fleet groups impacted 

under each proposed action

Use data gathered above and relate it to social and economic analyses of fleet-based 

groups to discuss impacted place-based communities and social groups. Connect the social 

analyses to the economic and biological analyses for the managers, especially where there are 

both qualitative and quantitative data used (Sharp and Lach 2003, Pollnac et al. 2006).

For each action, describe which communities are most impacted by each proposed 

regulatory change due to the impacted permit categories, gear types, areas fished, etc., across 

social groups and communities -- and considering the different communities’ social, economic, 

and climate vulnerabilities and cultural impacts. Which communities have the largest numbers of 

impacted fishermen or fishing and fishing-related businesses? Which of these have specific

types of vulnerabilities, which have multiple types of vulnerabilities, which have greater versus 

lesser levels of each of the vulnerabilities? And which communities, because of these 

combinations, are most impacted by each specific regulatory action? For an example of a very 

basic SIA, see NEFMC/MAFMC Monkfish Framework 935 (section 7.5). (Also note the AHE in 

section 6.4, especially 6.4.2 on Ports and Communities.) In addition, note any communities or 

social groups clearly impacted under E.O. 12898 on environmental justice (see doughnut graph 

in Colburn et al. 2016:293 as a quick way to provide overview, though a simple table can be 

sufficient), and/or that include treaty tribes or other indigenous peoples.

5. Summary of key points

Examples of questions to address in a summary include:

• Are impacts of the specific alternative36 chosen more positive or negative overall 

relative to the status quo and all the other alternatives, or are they too variable by 

individual measure to characterize in an overall way?

• Are impacts (either positive or negative) large or small and short- or long-term?

• Are impacts evenly distributed across communities, or are some communities 

impacted negatively or positively by multiple measures while others are impacted 

by only one or two measures, or none of the meaures? 

• Where communities are overall more heavily impacted, negatively or positively, is it 

due to the presence of large fleet/fishery sub-groups or large fishing community 

sub-groups, or to higher than average levels of social or climate vulnerabilities, or 

 35 Available at: https://www.nefmc.org/library/framework-9-2. Click on “Download File” for the EIS 

document.

36 Under NEPA, there is the additional requirement to address cumulative impacts. See Appendix B, 

section 1 for more detail. 
41

higher engagement or reliance on the species in question – or some combination?

Hint: It will usually be a combination.

Remember to use plain language. You are writing for the public, not for scientists. And 

finally, keep in mind as Rowan (2009:188) notes: “Magnitude criteria look at duration, spatial 

extent or size, likelihood and reversibility of impacts, and take into account legal standards and 

professional judgement about wellbeing. Focusing on wellbeing shows that the core of SIA is 

about how people are affected by projects” [and, for this Handbook, regulatory actions]

(emphasis added).
42

VI. Literature Cited

Acheson, J. M. 1981. Anthropology of fishing. Annual Review of Anthropology 10(1):275-316.

Acheson, J. M. 1988. The lobster gangs of Maine. 205 p.University Press of New England. 

Albizua, A., and C. Zografos. 2014. A values‐based approach to vulnerability and adaptation to 

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Appendix A: Other Relevant Laws and Executive Orders

1. Executive Order 12898 – Environmental Justice 

NMFS (2007) states that an SIA must address environmental justice issues, where they 

exist. E.O. 12898 requires that federal agencies conduct their programs, policies, and activities 

in a manner to ensure individuals or populations are not excluded from participation in, or 

denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under, those programs, policies, and 

activities because of their race, color, or national origin. To evaluate these impacts, information 

about the vulnerability of certain stakeholders must be better understood. Indicators of 

vulnerability can include but are not limited to income, race/ethnicity, household structure, 

education levels, and age. Although some general information related to this issue is available 

through the U.S. Census and other quantitative data, these sources do not disaggregate those 

individuals or groups that are affected by changes in marine resource management or the 

quality of the resource itself. Therefore, other types of data collection tools must be utilized to 

gather information related to this executive order. In addition, and specifically with respect to 

subsistence consumption of fish and wildlife, federal agencies are required to collect, maintain, 

and analyze information on the consumption patterns of populations who principally rely on fish 

and/or wildlife for subsistence.37 The main focus of E.O. 12898 is to consider “the 

disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of [an agency’s]

programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the 

United States and its territories...” 

In order to implement the E.O., a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by 

seventeen Cabinet members and White House offices in 2011 to facilitate coordination. One 

item in that MOU is the creation of the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice 

(IWGEJ). The Dept. of Commerce Environmental Justice Strategy (see Appendix B) is also a 

product of that MOU. For more on the IWGEJ, see Appendix B.

2. Executive Order 13707 – Using Behavioral Science Insights to

Better Serve the American People

E.O. 13707 enforces the idea that “behavioral science insights can support a range of 

national priorities, including helping workers to find better jobs; enabling Americans to lead 

longer, healthier lives; improving access to educational opportunities and support for success in 

school; and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.” The E.O. encourages federal 

agencies to incorporate behavioral science insights into their activities and policies through: (1) 

determining access to programs, (2) presenting information to the public, (3) structuring choices 

within programs, and (4) designing incentives.

While not specifying particular analyses, This E.O. supports the importance of social and 

economic analyses.

 37 For examples, see NOAA (2019), U.S. EPA (2000, 2019), U.S. DOI (2019).
56

3. Executive Orders related to Treaty Tribes

Across the federal government, agencies are required to follow the requirements for 

regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration with state, local, and tribal governments 

on federal matters that significantly or uniquely affect their communities laid out in E.O. 12875 –

Enhancing the Intergovernmental Partnership and E.O. 13175 – Consultation and Coordination 

with Indian Tribal Governments.

4. Executive Order 12866 – Regulatory Planning and Review

E.O. 12866 requires that federal agencies assess the costs and benefits to the nation of 

implementing a regulation, in order to assure for the American people “a regulatory system that 

protects and improves their health, safety, environment, and well-being and improves the 

performance of the economy without imposing unacceptable or unreasonable costs on society; 

regulatory policies that recognize that the private sector and private markets are the best engine 

for economic growth; regulatory approaches that respect the role of State, local, and tribal 

governments; and regulations that are effective, consistent, sensible, and understandable.” In 

other words, to assure that “a regulatory action not be undertaken unless the potential benefits 

to society for the regulation outweigh the potential costs to society” (NMFS 2007:1).

5. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)

The RFA (sometimes also referred to as RegFlex) requires that, for applicable rules, 

federal agencies prepare an initial and final regulatory flexibility analysis which “...shall describe 

the impact of the proposed rule on small entities...” The initial regulatory flexibility analysis 

“...shall also contain a description of any significant alternatives to the proposed rule which 

accomplish the stated objectives of applicable statutes and which minimize any significant 

economic impact of the proposed rule on small entities” (RFA Section 603(b)(5)(c)). In addition, 

each final regulatory flexibility analysis shall contain, among other things, “...a description of the 

steps the agency has taken to minimize the significant economic impact on small entities...” 

(RFA Section 604(a)(6)).

6. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA)

SBREFA (often pronounced [sub ree fuh]) “provides new avenues for small businesses to 

participate in and have access to the federal regulatory arena. The SBREFA gives small 

businesses: more influence over the development of regulations; additional compliance 

assistance for Federal rules; and new mechanisms for addressing enforcement actions by 

agencies.”38 Notably, it permits judicial review of agencies' compliance with the RFA to ensure 

that RFA procedures are accurately followed.

 38 https://www.sba.gov/advocacy/summary-sbrefa
57

Appendix B: Other Relevant Policy Directives

1. White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) 

Guidance on Cumulative Effects under the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

On September 14, 2020, a new rule from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) 

became effective, which updated CEQ's regulations for implementing NEPA (85 Fed. Reg. 

43304, July 16, 2020). As a result of this rule, NOAA and NMFS will update their NEPA 

procedures to reflect the changes in the NEPA regulations. NOAA’s procedures for 

implementing NEPA are set forth in NAO 216-6A and its accompanying Companion Manual. 

NMFS’s procedures for complying with NEPA for MSA fishery management actions are set forth 

in Appendix C to the Companion Manual. While NOAA and NMFS are in the process of revising 

their NEPA procedures, they will issue interim guidance on specific issues to assist in 

implementing the new regulations in the short-term, until NOAA and NMFS finalize their revised 

NEPA procedures. The NOAA NEPA Coordinator issued the first NOAA interim guidance on 

September 14, 2020. The NOAA NEPA Coordinator will update that guidance and issue 

additional interim guidance, as necessary. In addition, NMFS intends to issue NMFS-specific 

interim guidance, including guidance relevant to the NEPA process for actions under the MSA. 

The revised NEPA regulations remove the definition of "cumulative impacts" from the 

regulations. However, CEQ has not eliminated all requirements to consider the effects of other 

past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions that may inform the effects that will be 

expected from a proposed action and its alternatives. The underlying concepts of cumulative 

effects remain relevant to portions of the NEPA analysis. For example, the revised NEPA 

regulations continue to require a description of the affected environment. In order to do this, the 

condition of environmental resources likely to be affected must be described, and this should 

include an analysis of past and present activities that have influenced the condition of each 

resource likely to be affected by the proposed action. In addition, the affected environment must 

describe “reasonably foreseeable environmental trends and planned actions in the area(s).” 

Consistent with current agency practice, this should include both Federal and non-Federal 

planned activities that are reasonably foreseeable. Additional guidance on cumulative effects 

may be issued in the future. Please reach out to your regional NEPA coordinator and regional 

General Counsel for updates and with any questions on cumulative effects.

For social impact assessments under NEPA, the analysis should be based on the entire 

affected region and society, not the fishery in isolation. In a fisheries context, this could 

potentially include the accumulated impacts of the regulation in question, previous and 

concurrent regulations in the fishery in question, impacts in other fisheries that participants in 

this fishery also participate in, and the impacts of other non-fisheries regulations or societal 

forces such as a downturn in the economy. The appropriate boundaries for the analysis should 

be carefully considered, however, because if the boundaries are defined too broadly, the 

analysis could become unwieldy, and if they are defined too narrowly, significant issues may be 

missed. CEQ guidance for cumulative effects under NEPA notes these considerations as well.
58

2. Policy and Procedures for Compliance with the National 

Environmental Policy Act and Related Authorities

On September 14, 2020, a new rule from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) 

became effective, which updated CEQ's regulations for implementing NEPA (85 Fed. Reg. 

43304, July 16, 2020). As a result of this rule, NOAA and NMFS will update their NEPA 

procedures to reflect the changes in the NEPA regulations. NOAA’s procedures for 

implementing NEPA are set forth in NAO 216-6A and its accompanying Companion Manual. 

NMFS’s procedures for complying with NEPA for MSA fishery management actions are set forth 

in Appendix C to the Companion Manual. While NOAA and NMFS are in the process of revising 

their NEPA procedures, they will issue interim guidance on specific issues to assist in 

implementing the new regulations in the short-term, until NOAA and NMFS finalize their revised 

NEPA procedures. The NOAA NEPA Coordinator issued the first NOAA interim guidance on 

September 14, 2020. The NOAA NEPA Coordinator will update that guidance and issue 

additional interim guidance, as necessary. In addition, NMFS intends to issue NMFS-specific 

interim guidance, including guidance relevant to the NEPA process for actions under the MSA. 

Please reach out to your regional NEPA coordinator and regional General Counsel for updates 

and with any questions.

3. White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) 

Guidance on Environmental Justice under NEPA

On September 14, 2020, a new rule from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) 

became effective, which updated CEQ's regulations for implementing NEPA (85 Fed. Reg. 

43304, July 16, 2020). However, the revised NEPA regulations do not specifically address 

environmental justice, and at this time, CEQ has not made any changes to its environmental 

justice guidance. 

The first page of the current guidance from 1997 notes that: “In the memorandum to heads 

of departments and agencies that accompanied E. O. 12898, the President specifically 

recognized the importance of procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 

(42 U.S.C. §4321 et seq.) for identifying and addressing environmental justice concerns.” It 

further defines the key terms from E.O. 12898 (pp. 25-27) as follows:

Low-income population: Low-income populations in an affected area should be 

identified with the annual statistical poverty thresholds from the Bureau of the Census' 

Current Population Reports, Series P-60 on Income and Poverty. In identifying lowincome populations, agencies may consider as a community either a group of individuals 

living in geographic proximity to one another, or a set of individuals (such as migrant 

workers or Native Americans), where either type of group experiences common 

conditions of environmental exposure or effect.
59

Minority: Individual(s) who are members of the following population groups: American 

Indian or Alaska Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black, not of Hispanic origin; or 

Hispanic.

Minority population: Minority populations should be identified where either: (a) the 

minority population of the affected area exceeds 50 percent or (b) the minority 

population percentage of the affected area is meaningfully greater than the minority 

population percentage in the general population or other appropriate unit of geographic 

analysis. In identifying minority communities, agencies may consider as a community 

either a group of individuals living in geographic proximity to one another, or a 

geographically dispersed/transient set of individuals (such as migrant workers or Native 

Americans), where either type of group experiences common conditions of 

environmental exposure or effect. The selection of the appropriate unit of geographic 

analysis may be a governing body's jurisdiction, a neighborhood, census tract, or other 

similar unit that is to be chosen so as to not artificially dilute or inflate the affected 

minority population. A minority population also exists if there is more than one minority 

group present and the minority percentage, as calculated by aggregating all minority 

persons, meets one of the above-stated thresholds.

Disproportionately high and adverse environmental effects: When determining 

whether environmental effects are disproportionately high and adverse, agencies are to 

consider the following three factors to the extent practicable:

(a) Whether there is or will be an impact on the natural or physical environment 

that significantly (as employed by NEPA) and adversely affects a minority 

population, low-income population, or Indian tribe. Such effects may include 

ecological, cultural, human health, economic, or social impacts on minority 

communities, low-income communities, or Indian tribes when those impacts are 

interrelated to impacts on the natural or physical environment; and 

(b) Whether environmental effects are significant (as employed by NEPA) and are 

or may be having an adverse impact on minority populations, low-income 

populations, or Indian tribes that appreciably exceeds or is likely to appreciably 

exceed those on the general population or other appropriate comparison group; 

and

(c) Whether the environmental effects occur or would occur in a minority 

population, low-income population, or Indian tribe affected by cumulative or 

multiple adverse exposures from environmental hazards.

Additional definitions that may be of use are found immediately following, and in 

subsequent sections.
60

4. Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice

The Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (IWGEJ) has published a 

helpful report for analyzing these populations (IWGEJ and NEPA Committee 2016). Note that 

this report is not official guidance or a legal requirement.39 The U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency's Policy on Environmental Justice for Working with Federally Recognized Tribes and 

Indigenous Peoples and the Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on 

Race and Ethnicity are also useful documents to consult. For guidance on determinations of 

what is a “low income population,” see the definition in Appendix B under CEQ guidance on 

Environmental Justice under NEPA.

Suggested data sources for making this determination include the Decennial Census, 

American Community Survey (ACS) and “interviews with [knowledgeable] representatives from 

local schools, health and human services, places of worship, local businesses, and community 

representatives and leaders.” Number of fishing permits relative to overall population may 

provide approximate percent fishermen in the community. These are, however, very rough 

methods and care should be taken not to overstate them. Ethnographic data on the specific 

fishery of interest and its distribution across communities may be compared in a general manner 

to the overall race/ethnicity distributions within communities.

The Poverty, Population Composition Vulnerability, and Personal Disruption indices of the 

CSVIs are also good sources of these data. See section V.c.3 above.

5. Dept. of Commerce Environmental Justice Strategy

The Dept. of Commerce issued guidance in 1993 that affirms: “During National 

Environmental Policy Act reviews of major agency actions, any potential disproportionate and 

adverse environmental or health effects on low-income or minority populations are considered.”

6. Policies and processes regarding tribes

Under current practice, NOAA Fisheries is responsible for formal government-togovernment consultation requirements with federally recognized tribes, as described in E.O.

13175 (cited above). The Department of Commerce Consultation and Coordination Policy

(2013), provides information on complying with relevant laws regarding treaty tribes. An 

important staff resource is the NOAA Tribal Liaison, based at NOAA headquarters. The Liaison 

is available to assist regions with tribal engagement in the fisheries management process. Key 

information regarding the tribal consultation process and for informal consultations over a 

controversial issue can be found in the NOAA Consultation Handbook (formally titled NOAA 

Procedures for Government-to-Government Consultation with Federally Recognized Indian 

Tribes and Alaska Natives).

In addition, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has established a policy priority 

to reach out to Alaska Native Villages and Corporations. This includes more than 220 federally 

 39 See report for full disclaimer.
61

recognized tribes and over 100 Alaska Native Corporations (which are included in tribal 

consultations per the Consolidated Appropriations Act that extended the obligations for NMFS 

under E.O. 13175). In particular, Alaska Native Villages were allocated specific fishing rights 

through the Community Development Quota Program (MSA Sec. 305(i)), discussed above in 

section II.a.2.

The west coast of the United States has over 30 tribes with federally recognized 

treaty/tribal fishing rights (Puget Sound, Washington Coast, Columbia River, Oregon, and 

Idaho). There are also many other federally recognized tribes in the region who have lost

access to salmonids. All of the region’s FMPs take into account tribal fishing rights. In particular, 

the Pacific Fishery Management Council manages the region’s tribal fisheries as part of larger 

group of fisheries and has a Council membership provision for a treaty tribal member and 

alternate member (MSA Sec. 302(b)(5)(D)). 

7. Office of Management and Budget Guidance on Implementing 

E.O. 12866

This guidance clarifies that "significant" regulatory actions are “those likely to lead to a rule 

(1) having an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely and materially 

affecting a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health 

or safety, or State, local, or tribal governments or communities; (2) creating a serious 

inconsistency or otherwise interfering with an action taken or planned by another agency; (3) 

materially altering the budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, loan programs; or (4) 

raising novel legal or policy issues (Sec. 3(f)).”

8. The Small Business Administration’s Guide for “How to 

comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act”

This guidance for RFA clarifies that: “The RFA does not seek preferential treatment for 

small entities, nor does it require agencies to adopt regulations that impose the least burden on 

them, or mandate exemptions for them. Rather, it requires agencies to examine public policy 

issues using an analytical process that identifies barriers to small business competitiveness and 

seeks a level playing field for small entities, not an unfair advantage.”

9. NOAA Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) 

Policy

Here, EBFM is defined “as a systematic approach to fisheries management in a 

geographically specified area that contributes to the resilience and sustainability of the 

ecosystem; recognizes the physical, biological, economic, and social interactions among the 

affected fishery-related components of the ecosystem, including humans; and seeks to optimize 

benefits among a diverse set of societal goals.” Furthermore, it recognizes that tradeoffs must 
62

be made among these societal goals, based on the expected physical, biological, economic, 

and social impacts of each.

10. NMFS Guidance for Conducting a Review of Catch Share 

Programs

This guidance is designed to “ensure the reviews of catch share programs (CSPs) are 

comprehensive and targeted at meeting statutory requirements; coordinated with stakeholders; 

carried out in a transparent, efficient, and effective manner; and are conducted by applying 

consistent standards across the country while allowing necessary regional flexibility.” In order to 

conduct an effective review, appropriate data collection plans should be put into place at or 

before implementation. Similar to an EIS, Catch Share Program Reviews must include the 

following elements relevant to an SIA:

1) a description of biological, ecological/environmental, economic, social, 

and administrative environments before and since the program’s implementation, 

2) an analysis of the program’s biological, ecological/environmental, 

economic, social, and administrative effects, 

3) an evaluation of those effects with respect to meeting the goals and 

objectives (i.e., program performance), including a summary of the conclusions 

arising from the evaluation, 

4) a summary of any unexpected effects (positive or negative) which do not 

fall under the program’s goals and objectives.
63

Appendix C: Tools and Methods

The tools and methods presented here should be carried out by trained social scientists or 

under their direct supervision. If you are not a social scientist, talk to the social scientist(s) in 

your region before implementing any of these tools and methods. Also, remember that you need 

to consider your available time and resources. In other words, what is the timeline for 

preparation of the SIA? What methods are feasible to use within that timeframe? How large is 

the change being implemented? How many people and communities will likely be affected? And 

will any of the methods you are considering require a filing under the Paperwork Reduction Act 

(described below)?

1. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) process

Before beginning any primary data collection, familiarize yourself with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act, or PRA (U.S. OPM 2011, Executive Summary), a federal law designed to: 

• Minimize the paperwork burden on the public and other entities.

• Ensure the greatest possible public benefit from and maximize the utility of 

information created, collected, maintained, used, shared, and disseminated by or for 

the federal government.

• Improve the quality and use of federal information to strengthen decisionmaking, 

accountability, and openness in government and society.

• Minimize the cost to the federal government of creating, collecting, maintaining, 

using, disseminating, and disposing of information.

The PRA applies when a federal agency seeks to collect information using identical 

questions posed to 10 or more persons (or fewer if applicable to the entirety of an industry 

sector). Large-scale surveys, thus, always require PRA compliance. Focus groups for the 

purpose of beta testing a survey will require PRA compliance, but be included in the PRA 

package for the survey rather than require a separate PRA package. External companies or 

institutions with NOAA-funded contracts to conduct surveys on NOAA’s behalf must also comply 

with the PRA, as must Council members and staff, who are considered to be federal employees 

for purposes of collecting information from the public, per the Headquarters Office of NOAA 

General Counsel. 

Oral histories and semi-structured interviews do not utilize an identical set of questions, but 

instead a general set of topics, not all of which may be covered with any particular interviewee. 

Focus groups that are essentially group interviews focusing on general topics, as described for 

oral histories and semi-structured interviews, will not be subject to the PRA. 

It is important to keep in mind that preparing a PRA package generally requires time and, 

once submitted to OMB, the clearance process will generally take from four months to up to a 

year for processing. The package may then be sent back with questions and need to be revised 

and resubmitted. All this must be taken into account in survey planning to ensure that the survey 

can be developed, approved, implemented, and analyzed in time for use in the SIA. This is why 
64

surveys are recommended for implementation outside of the Fishery Management Council 

process. Find out who the PRA specialist for your region is -- they are invaluable sources of 

information and assistance when preparing a PRA request. 

2. Literature review

Literature reviews can be one of the most useful sources of information for an SIA. The 

purpose of a literature review is to identify existing research and information about the chosen 

topic. In the case of an SIA, this refers to the fishery of interest, the regional fishing 

communities, and the proposed management alternatives. The literature can include articles in 

academic journals, NOAA Technical Memoranda and other reports, reports from the U.S. Fish & 

Wildlife Service or states in your region, and other “gray literature” such as previous EIS 

documents for the fishery in question. These can then be summarized and used in the SIA to 

complement and explain findings based on current fishery-specific and community-specific data. 

There are free literature search sources, such as Google Scholar, Researchgate.net and 

Academia.edu. NOAA also has access to certain databases, such as Wiley, JSTOR, and 

ScienceDirect, through an agency-wide agreement. Council staff and contractors may have 

access when using their @noaa.gov email. Contact your local NOAA Fisheries librarian for 

details. Other databases, such as AnthroSource, are dependent on membership in a 

professional society (here, the American Anthropological Association). You may also have 

access to other specific journals through a professional society membership, such as Fish and 

Fisheries through the American Fisheries Society or Human Organization through the Society 

for Applied Anthropology. Also see Bernard (2006, chapter 4).

For historical perspective on fisheries participation, look at available Community Profiles in 

your region, as well as the original and some more recent FMP documents in your region. Other 

gray literature may also be available in libraries, including the NOAA Fisheries Science Center 

libraries, or on your region’s NOAA Fisheries Science Center or Regional Office website. 

Reports will likely be available, for instance, on any social or economic surveys conducted in 

your region. Results may be published as journal articles, technical memoranda, and/or 

reference documents. Talk to your social scientist and economist colleagues.

3. General Secondary Data

Secondary data can include simple counts of landings and permits (including broken out 

by relevant permit categories) by community. Other potentially useful data includes census data, 

information on processors, and counts of bait and tackle shops (also see section V.b. of the 

main document). There are also various indicators and sets of indicators. These include the RQ 

and LQ, as well as the Fishing Engagement and Fishing Reliance, and Social Vulnerability and 

Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability indicators from the NOAA CSVIs (also see section V.c. of 

the main document and section 4 of this apppendix). 

To use most secondary data (except for the pre-calculated CSVIs), you will need to 

understand your region’s databases. For example, which variables are in landings, permit, 

dealer, or other quantitative databases? How do you find the look-up tables that list the possible 
65

variables, e.g., what are the possible species codes for the variable that pulls species caught, 

and what species name is associated with each code? What are proper methods for linking 

these databases correctly? Learn your available databases well and you will be well poised to 

conduct or request whatever analyses are necessary. Seek help from your fellow social 

scientists.

Getting data may be your responsibility or your data may be pulled by a central group that 

works for the lab/office as a whole. This varies by region. If it is your responsibility, it will be 

important to learn the programming language(s) most commonly used to access the data. Some 

of the most common are SQL, SAS or SAS Access (which embeds SQL code within SAS) and, 

increasingly, R. If you are not already familiar with the language(s) in common use in your 

region, ask for training. And do not hesitate to ask your colleagues specific questions about how 

to pull a certain subset of data; they will be happy to share code with you. If it is pulled by a 

central group, you should still learn the data structure as described in the previous paragraph, in 

order to know what data to ask for. Again, turn to your social and economic colleagues for 

assistance.

Depending on your region, you may also want to begin collecting the year-by-year permit 

application forms from your regional office. These will list all the federal fisheries governed by 

FMPs and define the various categories under each. Since these can change over time, it’s a 

handy way to keep a record of long-term changes in categories or category definitions. But be 

aware that changes may occur within a fishing year that are not reflected until the following 

permit year. Only the most recent management action for a given fishery will have the most upto-date information. Each year the current year’s application form will be available on the 

regional office website or from the appropriate regional office. Further, if you call that office, they 

may be able to supply you with at least a subset of previous years’ forms. You will find that it is 

easy to sort by categories that existed within a given year, but more difficult to know what those 

categories meant. Having annual permit applications, with their concise descriptions of FMP-byFMP categories, can be helpful. Contact the NMFS Regional Office and speak with the Permits 

office to learn how such data are handled in your region.

4. Community Social Vulnerability Indicators

NOAA Fisheries’ social scientists developed the CSVIs in order to analyze objective wellbeing, including Social Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability. They have been 

calculated for nearly 4,600 communities in coastal counties from 19 states in the U.S. East and 

Gulf Coast, and West Coast, as well as Alaska and Hawaii (Colburn and Jepson 2012, HimesCornell and Kasperski 2016, Jepson and Colburn 2013). They are also being adapted for U.S.

Caribbean territories (pers. com. Michael Jepson) and draft FMPs including the CSVIs are 

available on the Caribbean Council website.40 These indices were developed based on the work 

of Jacob et al. (2010, 2013a), who operationalized the concepts of social vulnerability and 

resilience in fishing dependent communities, and Cutter et al. (2009) who did the same for 

natural hazards. The CSVIs are the first such measures developed and operationalized at the 

community level for application to U.S. fisheries policy on a national scale. Given the MSA 

 40 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/caribbean-island-based-fishery-management-plans
66

requirement to take into account place-based fishing communities, 12 indices were developed 

at the place level (Census Designated Place (CDP) and Minor Civil Division (MCD)), using 77 

variables from seven secondary data sources including NMFS landings data, NMFS 

recreational effort data, and the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey 5-year estimates. 

A complete description of the CSVIs, the methodology used to create them, supporting 

information, and an exploratory map can be reviewed here: 

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/socioeconomics/social-indicators-fishing-communities-0.

See also Jepson and Colburn (2013) and Colburn et al. (2017). 

a. Fishing Engagement and Reliance

Commercial Fishing Engagement and Reliance indices can be calculated at the regional 

level using a common national procedure, and may be created based on the total aggregate of 

fish landed in each community or broken out by species/species groups. They are available on 

the NOAA Fisheries social indicators website. Due to differences in the availability of data, 

recreational Fisheries Engagement and Reliance indices are calculated on a regional basis. To 

date, there are recreational fishing indices calculated for the Northeast, Southeast, and Gulf of 

Mexico communities, based on NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Recreational Information Program 

(MRIP) site survey data (Jepson and Colburn 2013). The Alaska Region, the West Coast 

Region and the Pacific Islands Region rely upon data unique to each region to construct their

recreational indices. Talk to your regional colleagues.

i. Fishing Engagement

The Fishing Engagement indices demonstrate the importance of fisheries to a given 

community relative to other coastal communities in a region. They include both commercial 

Fishing Engagement and recreational Fishing Engagement. (See Table C1 for commercial 

Fishing Engagement variables; recreational Fishing Engagement variables will vary by region. 

Speak to your social science colleagues for details for your region.)

ii. Fishing reliance

Fishing Reliance represents the per capita values of the variables included in the 

engagement indices. Including the per capita commercial and recreational Fishing Reliance 

indices allows smaller communities with small fishing fleets to still be represented as having a 

strong involvement in fishing if a large fraction of their population is involved in fishing. (See 

Table C1 for commercial Fishing Reliance variables; recreational Fishing Reliance variables will 

vary by region. Speak to your social science colleagues for details for your region.)
67

Table C1. Variables selected to construct the Commercial Fisheries Indices

Index Variable

Commercial Fishing Engagement Landed pounds and value

Number of dealers with landings

Number of commercial fishing permits

Commercial Fishing Reliance Landed pounds and value per capita

Number of dealers with landings per capita

Number of commercial fishing permits per capita

b. Social Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability

The current CSVI social indicators target Social Vulnerability (Jepson and Colburn 2013), 

including Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability (Colburn and Jepson 2012, Jepson and Colburn 

2013). Additional social indicators are planned. While not a full measure of community wellbeing, they are focused on community-level characteristics theorized to influence, though not 

predict,

41 objective well-being and are considered social-community attributes. Social 

Vulnerability and Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability represent social factors (see Table C2) 

that can shape either an individual’s or a community’s ability to adapt to change (Jacob et al. 

2010, 2013b).

Be aware, however, that these may not be appropriate in areas with large numbers of very 

small and/or subsistence-based communities, e.g., in the Alaska and Western Pacific Regions. 

For example, most theorists agree that poverty is an indicator of social vulnerability and can be 

associated with decreased well-being (e.g., Morrow 1999, Cutter et al. 2003, Lee 2014). Poverty 

is commonly measured based on whether household income is below a specific threshold (set in 

the U.S. by the Census Bureau). However, individuals engaged in a subsistence way of life may 

not require cash to meet their basic needs in the same way as individuals fully integrated into a 

market economy, and income statistics may not prove as reliable an indicator of their material 

well-being (Robards and Alessa 2004). Nonetheless, subsequent groundtruthing by Lavoie et al. 

(2018) found that qualitative rankings of vulnerability completely or moderately agreed with 

quantitative indicator rankings 73.8% of the time “and the results indicate that most of the indices 

are representative of community vulnerability.”

In Alaska, a subsistence indicator is also calculated based on surveys conducted by the 

Alaska Department of Fish and Game (Himes-Cornell and Kasperski 2016, Lavoie et al. 2018). 

There are specific limitations to the Alaska subsistence indicator due to very infrequent collection 

 41 Indicators of objective well-being (OWB) are a promising tool to aid in planning processes as well as 

SIA and other forms of regulatory review. However, many studies have demonstrated that OWB 

measures do not necessarily accurately predict individual-level subjective well-being (Diener and Suh 

2000, Inglehart and Klingemann 2000, Marshall and Marshall 2007). Because the CSVIs do not 

incorporate measures of individual-level subjective well-being, or the relational context in which notions of 

the “good life” are given meaning, we must emphasize that they do not stand alone as a comprehensive 

measure of well-being. See Smith and Clay (2010) for more on objective vs. subjective well-being.
68

of subsistence data by the state, along with not all communities being surveyed in any given year 

(see Donkersloot et al. (2020a) and endnote 1 of Himes-Cornell and Kasperski (2016) for details). 

i. Social Vulnerability

Social Vulnerability Indicators (Table C2) characterize factors that over time may indicate 

a threat to community resilience. It includes indices of Personal Disruption, Population 

Composition, Poverty, Labor Force, and Housing Characteristics.

ii. Gentrification pressure vulnerability

The Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability Indicators (Table C2) characterize factors that 

over time may indicate a threat to the viability of a vibrant commercial working waterfront, as 

non-fishing related businesses compete with the fishing industry for waterfront locations and 

fishing community populations grow with the influx of new residents often from outside the area. 

It is comprised of indices of Retiree Migration, Urban Sprawl, and Housing Disruption. The 

Retiree Migration Index and Urban Sprawl Index were not calculated for Alaska communities 

due to the lack of regional relevance.

Table C2. Variables selected to construct the social vulnerability and gentrification pressure 

indices

Index Variable

Social Vulnerability

Personal Disruption Percent unemployed

Percent with no diploma

Percent in poverty

Percent females separated

Population Composition Percent white alone

Percent female single headed households

Percent population age 0-5

Percent that speak English less than well

Poverty Percent receiving assistance

Percent of families below poverty level

Percent over 65 in poverty

Percent under 18 in poverty
69

Labor Force Structure Percent females employed

Percent population in the labor force

Percent of class of worker self employed

Percent population receiving social security

Housing Characteristics Median rent in dollars

Median mortgage in dollars

Median number of rooms

Percent mobile homes

Gentrification Pressure Vulnerability

Housing Disruption Percent change in mortgage

Percent change in home values

Percent of owners monthly costs 35% of

income

Urban Sprawl Population Density

Nearest city w/50k population in miles

Cost of living index

Median home value

Retiree Migration Households with one or more over 65

Percent population receiving social security

Percent receiving retirement income

Percent in labor force

c. Climate vulnerability

The CSVI climate vulnerability indicators characterize environmental conditions that may affect 

the sustainability of essential commercial and recreational fishing businesses and infrastructure. 

The Sea Level Rise Risk Index is available for all states except Alaska and was computed using 

the NOAA Office of Coastal Management coastal land area data at elevations from one to six 

feet above the mean higher high water mark (Colburn et al. 2016). A Storm Surge Risk Index is 

available for the Eastern and Gulf Coasts and was calculated using the Sea Lake and Overland 

Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) display program data from the National Hurricane Center and 

digital elevation data from the United States Geological Survey. Both indicators were developed 

using the same methodology as Jepson and Colburn (2013) and Jacob et al. (2010, 2013b) and 

are available on the CSVI website42. Additional climate vulnerability indicators may be available 

at the regional level. For example, there are Alaska-specific indicators for Sea Ice Coverage, 

 42 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/socioeconomics/social-indicators-fishing-communities-0
70

Erosion Risk, Permafrost Coverage, and Proximity to Transition Zones (Himes-Cornell and 

Kasperski 2015).

5. Semi-structured interviews and Oral Histories

In conducting research for an SIA, the semi-structured interview43 is usually the most 

immediately useful for information on day-to-day fishing practices, views, and understanding of 

management measures, and likely responses to different management measures (see Colburn 

and Clay 201144). For an SIA, it is a meeting in which the interviewer can target issues around 

the fishery and management measure, but does not strictly follow a formalized list of questions. 

Instead, they will ask more open-ended questions, allowing for a discussion with the interviewee 

rather than a straightforward question and answer format. For an SIA, oral histories are 

especially helpful for information on cultural values, social structure, TEK, LEK,45 and changes 

over time. They similary use open-ended questions, but would be focused more broadly on the 

interviewee’s long-term involvement with fishing, their experiences, the knowledge that was 

passed down to them from relatives or captains they worked with when they were young, and 

the knowledge they have acquired from experience. Oral histories can fill in gaps in the 

historical record, especially for marginalized groups.

In either case, you should prepare an interview guide in advance by choosing a set of 

general topics that you are looking for information on. Remember that if you will be speaking 

with 10 or more people you cannot ask the same set of identical questions of all of them (per 

PRA rules, in section 1 of this Appendix, above). This is why general themes or topics are 

usually best, e.g., addressed through open-ended questions that allow the interviewee to 

respond with what they consider to be important on the topic, e.g., “Tell me about fishing for x 

species”, or “Talk to me about your history in fishing” or “thoughts on regulations” or “challenges 

in fishing today,” rather than closed ended questions that provide the interviewee with a limited 

set of explicit options for answers (e.g., yes/no, multiple choice or drop down, checkboxes, and 

ranking questions).

For a semi-structured interview focused on a specfic regulation or set of regulations, the 

number of individuals you will want to interview depends on the complexity and importance of 

the regulation in question. This will relate to the scale of the potential impact and how many 

stakeholders might be impacted, though Creswell and Poth (2016) suggest a range of 20-30 

people to be adequate. Patton (1990) suggests stopping when the interviewer and the note 

taker/person handling the recording equipment agree that thematic saturation, the point at which 

no new concepts emerge from subsequent interviews, has been reached. For Patton this 

occurred at 20 interviews. The approach for semi-structured interviews is to talk to people with 

different points of few on a specific topic. Depending on the regulatory action, you may want to 

talk to commercial fishermen/industry representatives, recreational fishermen, shore support 

 43 What we describe here as a semi-structured interview actually falls somewhere between Bernard’s 

(2006:210-212) definitions of unstructured versus semi-structured interviews. However, conducted as we 

describe, these interviews are not subject to the PRA.

44 This uses the term oral histories for what were actually semi-structured interviews.

45 Note that TEK is associated with indigenous peoples, as distinguished from LEK held by long-time 

residents in an area, or long-term participants in an activity or industry (NMFS/NOS 2019).
71

businesses, etc. For each stakeholder type you want to talk to people within that sector who

might have different points of view. This is a time to draw upon key informants and snowball 

sampling to help you identify people to interview. 

A semi-structured interview, because you are simply probing for information on likely 

impacts of a regulation, may well be shorter than an oral history to conduct and analyze. For an 

oral history, you will be looking for more in-depth information and planning for the possibility of 

new and unexpected insights or LEK; this may take an hour or more. You will therefore want to 

allow the interview to flow more naturally, with you gently guiding but not constantly forcing back 

to the topics you want to cover. Interesting and useful information that you hadn’t thought to look 

for may emerge in such a less directed conversation. If you are not experienced with 

interviewing, see Bernard (2006, Chapter 9) and ask your experienced colleagues for coaching. 

Or, they may be able to do the first few interviews with you to help you learn by example. Voices

offers workshops, support and guidance. The site also has an excellent downloadable guide to 

doing oral history. Remember this for oral histories: “The rule is: Get people onto a topic of 

interest and get out of the way. Let the informant provide information that he or she thinks is 

important” (Bernard 2006:216).

For an oral history or a semi-structured interview, you should plan, if at all possible, for inperson interviews. In-person interviews are objectively preferable because you have the added 

information available through facial expressions and body language. In addition, you develop 

trust and rapport when you can make eye contact with the narrator and respond physically (but 

silently) to their statements - smiles, silent laughter, nodding your head, eye contact, etc. Also, 

the audio is a better-quality recording. When in-person is not feasible, try to arrange a video call. 

There are multiple platforms that can be used. There are tools for recording remote interviews if 

that is your only option (e.g., ZencasterTM, Report ITM).

But in-person is not always possible or the best use of your time. Short interviews to 

quickly gather specific factual information or a brief take on a specific topic may be better 

conducted by phone or video call, especially if the respondents you are looking to interview are 

located over a broad geographic area. These interviews may or may not be recorded. But if they 

are not recorded you need to take extensive and detailed notes, including flagging key phrases 

in the interviewee’s own words. Your initial notes, taken during the interview, can then be 

fleshed out immediately afterward while the interview is fresh in your mind. As with all things, 

your ability to remember details from shorthand notes will improve over time. General themes 

will emerge simply from reading through these compiled interview notes. That is often enough 

for the SIA.

a. Choosing the interviewees 

To find the appropriate interviewees, first list out the key types of people you need to 

interview based on likely impacted groups, given the regulation and any draft economic 

analyses available early in the process. The sample size should be based on both the range of 

stakeholder types, number of participants within each group, and similarities and differences 

within and across these groups. You want to capture convergent and divergent perspectives on 

a central theme. For example, you determine that the potentially impacted stakeholders are 

commercial and recreational fishermen, and shore support businesses (e.g., net makers, ice 
72

houses, bait and tackle stores). For each stakeholder type you want to talk to people that 

represent a range of perspectives until you achieve thematic saturation, i.e, when no new 

concepts emerge from further interviews. See Vasileiou et al. (2018) and Hagaman and Wutich 

(2017) for examples of how to determine sample size.

Next, ask NMFS port agents (Regional Office staff), other social scientists and economists 

in your group, social scientists at your regional Fisheries Management Council, or at your 

regional Sea Grant office for suggestions – and contact information. You may also find initial 

contacts through Council members and by attending Council meetings. Another source may be 

fishing associations in your region whose members would be affected by the regulation in 

question. Then, when speaking with those contacts, ask at the end of the interview for 

suggestions of other groups and/or individuals that you should talk to; this is snowball (Bernard 

2006:193) or purposive (Bernard 2006:194) sampling, and is useful for hard-to-find populations, 

including those for whom there is no good sample frame. 

b. Conducting the interviews

Short semi-structured interviews for basic background information do not necessarily 

require recording. Simple handwritten or typed notes may be sufficient. This is true whether or 

not you include their name. Your initial notes, taken during the interview, can then be fleshed 

out immediately afterward. General themes will emerge simply from reading through these 

compiled interview notes. That is often enough for the SIA. If you (either during the conversation 

or later) decide you would like to use a quote from an interviewee, you must have their 

permission in writing. An email will suffice.

Oral history interviews (whether in-person or by phone) must be recorded. A standard 

release form should be handed out or emailed in advance.

46 This will give the interviewee the 

option to approve: 1) recording the interview as audio and/or video and/or 2) uploading the 

interview to Voices, the NMFS oral history site as an audio/video file, and/or a written transcript. 

It will also specify that these formats can be downloaded and used by researchers. Before you 

sit down for an interview, the interviewee should understand the purpose, scope, and possible 

outlets for the recording. At the interview, before you record, you can introduce the release. 

Then sign it after the interview as a good-faith measure. It should offer multiple use options, 

such as that transcript and recording may be uploaded to Voices, only transcript may be 

uploaded, and/or NMFS researchers may keep a non-public file and use the data contained in it 

for summary statistics only. For assistance in choosing an appropriate release form that will 

grant permission for public uses of the interview, contact the person listed on the Voices “About 

Us” page. If permission to record is not given, let them know the interview will not be uploaded 

to Voices and then take as detailed notes as possible. It is also critical to quickly state, at the 

beginning of the interview: “This is an interview with [interviewee]. The interview is taking place 

on [date] in [location]. The interviewer is [interviewer name].” These metadata are essential for 

the interview to be of use to you and other researchers. You may want to add one or two 

additional top level questions, such as “what is your primary fishery?” or “how old are you, if I 

may ask?” 

 46 One option for a standard form can be found here: https://voices.nmfs.noaa.gov/how-to-contribute.
73

In terms of the heart of the interview, you will likely be planning to ask thematic questions 

aimed at soliciting facts: who, where, what, when, and how. You can list the regulatory changes 

and ask what they expect would be the impact of these measures, and then ask a few key 

follow-up questions regarding specifics of the proposed regulatory changes, as needed. But 

also think about asking “why” as a follow-up question, as it may uncover social or cultural values 

that impact behavior in ways that might not seem obvious (see Rossiter and Stead 2003, HallArber et al. 2009, Urquhart et al. 2013).

Finally, it can be useful to interview in pairs. This allows one person to concentrate on the 

interview, while the other is in charge of setting up and dealing with the recording machinery or 

taking backup notes.

c. Transcribing and analyzing the interviews

If you have recordings, you will need to transcribe your interviews – either yourself or by 

hiring someone with appropriate expertise (e.g., a professional transcription service). The 

transcription should not include verbal tic - ums, ers, mm-hmm, etc. It makes the transcript 

harder to read and understand for researchers and, in any case, interviewees often request they 

be removed. Non-standard pronunciations should also be corrected, e.g. “fishin” for “fishing,” as 

these make searching the transcript more difficult. If these linguistic aspects are important for a 

researcher, they can listen to the recording; but, for the transcript to be easily read and 

searched, it should be standardized. Additionally, interviewees must be allowed to review their 

transcript before granting final approval. They may find they said something that, in retrospect, 

they do not wish to be made public. 

You should also include periodic time codes (“minutes:seconds” elapsed since the start of 

the recording) at natural breaks to help readers/listeners. If you are transcribing yourself, you 

may want to use transcription software such as Trint, Temi, or others. Research the current 

available software packages, and also consult your colleagues to see if they are using 

something that your group already has a license for. You will also want to prepare a preliminary 

list of topics you want to code for. Once you have all the transcriptions, read through them to get 

a general feel for the common and important content or themes to see if there are additional 

codes you want to include. If your transcriptions were done by someone else, this step can also 

allow you to correct for things like spelling errors of fish names or other common misspellings 

that would have been introduced by the transcriber. If the transcriber is not familiar with 

common fisheries acronyms, fish names, etc., such errors can be minimized by providing them 

a reference list. If you are planning to upload these oral histories or semi-structured interviews 

to the Voices website, consult the website for materials related to formatting. 

Depending on how many interviews you are dealing with, it may be enough to mark up 

these Word documents and create a matrix in Excel for tracking themes by characteristics such 

as age, sex or gender, town, and fishery. If you have more than 10-12 interviews, or a large 

number of codes per interview, you will probably want to analyze the transcripts using a text

analysis software package. These programs have procedures for assigning characteristics such 

as those described above, and lists of these characteristics are generally downloadable. There 

are many different such software packages available, including MaxQDATM, NVivoTM, and AtlastiTM. Ask your colleagues what they are using, as it will be simpler to work with a package that 
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others already know and can guide you on. If you already have a particular package you are 

familiar with and your office is amenable to buying a license for that, it may be simplest to 

continue working with what you already know. If neither of these is the case, do some research 

to find out what is currently the most recommended software package that fits your needs. Many 

software packages allow for various types of analysis to help understand connections between 

codes or categories of interviewees. Explore these to help you understand the interview data.

6. Focus Groups

As described above in section 1 of this appendix on the PRA, focus groups for the 

purposes of beta testing a survey fall under the PRA and will need to be part of the PRA 

package for the survey. Beta testing is a method used in the preliminary stages of survey 

development to refine answer categories for multiple-choice questions and to narrow questions 

to those most effective in soliciting the information you are looking for (Bernard 2006). Focus 

groups are one way to conduct beta-testing (more on beta testing in section 7, below).

Other focus groups that involve a facilitated discussion (facilitated by you, a colleague, or 

a professional) around a set of topics or themes do not fall under the PRA (See section 1 of this 

Appendix, above). These groups are typically between 6 and 12 people. Usually, a set of 3-5 

focus groups is held on different dates and in different locations, to allow attendance by 

geographically dispersed members of the target interview group. Focus groups as a stand-alone 

method provide valuable insight into understanding the impacts of fisheries management 

measures through the collection of qualitative data from fishery stakeholders (Lew and HimesCornell 2011). 

In terms of practicalities, you may take care of all focus group arrangements yourself or 

you may choose to hire a professional focus group business. There are companies that 

specialize in setting up focus groups and can handle many of the pre-focus group activities, as 

well as provide recordings and/or transcripts that facilitate your analysis. If you decide to use a 

focus group company, ask your colleagues for recommendations. The Division of Economic and 

Social Analysis within the NMFS Headquarters Office of Science and Technology may also 

have suggestions.

a. Choosing focus group locations and dates 

In order maximize attendance by the full range of the target population, you should choose 

a set of key ports based on your initial analysis of place-based communities, fleet-based groups,

and social groups. You will also want to identify a range of dates that both fit your research 

schedule and are easiest for fishermen. Many elements play into both these factors. Your ability 

to travel during certain periods may be constrained by budget deadlines or other administrative 

issues; most commonly, lack of a clear agency budget may mean funds for travel – even local 

travel (within 50 miles of your home office), are not available until the end of the fiscal year, 

leaving your travel period heavily constrained. Work- and weather-related issues are the most 

common constraints for fishermen and other industry members. For instance, some fisheries in 

the Northeast are slow in the winter, so fishermen may have more time or flexibility of schedule 
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to attend a meeting then. Yet on the West coast there is an active winter crab fishery that may 

make this a bad time for meetings. Further, if snowstorms or hurricanes are common in your 

region during certain periods, those may not be ideal for those who may have to travel an hour 

or more to reach the closest focus group. There will be judgement calls involved. Speak with 

colleagues or local fishermen about best times for meetings in your region. Council staff may be 

especially knowledgeable, as they need to schedule a lot of meetings. You, or your focus group 

company, will then need to secure locations for holding the focus groups and make all 

necessary arrangements. Some useful resources for planning, conducting, and analyzing focus 

groups can be found in Bernard (2006:232-239), Morgan and Scannell (1998), and Chapter 5 of 

Fowler (1995).

b. Choosing your sample population

Begin with the communities you have chosen to focus on in the SIA. Then locate contact 

information for a matrix of individuals covering the key fleet-based groups and social groups.

Home address of the permit holder is usually associated with permits, as is permit number 

(which should allow connection of permit data to landings data). You may or may not have 

phone numbers. You or your focus group company will then need to begin mailing invitations 

(which you need to create) that include the list of focus groups, their dates, and locations. 

Fishermen should be asked to identify first and second choices for which focus group to attend. 

That allows some flexibility in case of too few people choosing one location or too many 

another.

c. Setting up the focus groups

For focus groups that do not fall under the PRA, remember that the most common size for 

a focus group (except for those using the Q-methodology described below) is 6-12 individuals.

You will want to invite more than your preferred number, as there will inevitably be some 

fishermen who need to cancel at the last minute. There is a significant amount of planning that 

goes into inviting the participants and finding and setting up facilities and materials for the focus 

group. Be aware that per Department of Commerce General Counsel guidance: "As a general 

rule, an agency may not expend appropriated funds to provide food to Government employees 

or other individuals as it is considered an expense personal to the individual." If you wish to 

provide food or drink during the focus groups, talk with your colleagues about the best way to 

handle this. If using a focus group company: 1) you send them a list of ports where you want to 

conduct the focus groups and the matrix that constitutes the sample frame and 2) they arrange 

details of specific sites, including recording equipment, and send invitations and track RSVPs. 

d. Conducting the focus groups

A focus group is essentially a group discussion around a set of topics or themes, where 

you encourage the participants to discuss topics with each other, not just you, while you 

occasionally interject to keep the discussion flowing without stalling on one topic for too long 
76

(see Bernard 2006:232-239, Morgan and Scannell 1998, and Chapter 5 of Fowler 1995). You 

do not need professional facilitator training to run a focus group, but you should at least have 

experience in semi-structured interviews or oral histories. Ask leading questions, for example: 

How do you decide where to fish? What are current issues affecting your ability to earn a living 

in fishing, whether related to regulations or other areas? When do you think gear 

regulations/closures/etc. work well/don’t work well?

Apart from the basic focus group described above, there are two specific research 

techniques that can be used in a focus group setting that may be useful in the exploration and 

comparison of the impacts of fisheries management measures (or other topics): the Delphi 

technique and Q-methodology. Both methods generally require specialized training in interview 

facilitation techniques. It is unlikely you will have time to use these for an SIA, but if your 

position allows for longer term data gathering, these could be used in addition to or instead of 

surveys.

The Delphi technique is used to systematically develop a consensus of expert opinion. 

The Delphi Method (when used in face-to-face settings technically called a mini-Delphi or 

Estimate-Talk-Estimate) involves experts on a topic either (1) conducting multiple rounds of pile 

sorts, (2) answering multiple rounds of short questionnaires47, or (3) participating in multiple 

rounds of semi-structured interviews. In all cases, the focus group leader summarizes the 

overall results for the group in-between rounds. This allows each expert to revise their 

responses based on the feedback about the group responses. In this way, the group usually 

moves toward a consensus that can be used by the researchers in making assessments about 

the topic (e.g., proposed regulations or LEK) that was the focus of the process. You need a 

representative set of experts; the size and complexity of the fishery will determine how many 

individuals this is. Examples of using the Delphi technique in fisheries can be found in Lin et al. 

(2014), Moutopoulos et al. (2017), Leite and Gasalla (2013), and de Groot et al. (2014). Training 

in the Delphi technique is desirable before implementing it.

Q-methodology combines the benefits of both qualitative and quantitative research for the 

trained researcher. Group interviews or focus groups can use this methodology to investigate 

the in-depth perspectives of stakeholders. Interview participants are requested to systematically 

rank amenity values to be explored (e.g., characteristics of management measures or of fish 

species) and indicate the outcomes or states that they most prefer. This method assesses 

patterns of attitudes and shared perceptions and produces ‘typical’ sets of views by averaging 

out different individuals’ views. It begins with researchers searching out strong and differing 

views on the topic of interest. For a fisheries regulatory action, the hearings held for the scoping 

process are a rich source of data on perceptions and beliefs, or what in Q-methodology are 

called “subjectivities.” The range of opinions is represented by a set of statements that cover the 

range of common views on the subject. Individual participants (selected for their strong and 

differing views on the topic of interest) are asked to pile sort these onto a basically parabolashaped grid, with statements they strongly agree with to one side, those they strongly disagree 

with to the other side, and those they are indifferent to or ambivalent about in the center. You 

need a representative set of the full range of opinions on the topic; the size of the fishery and 

complexity of views on your topic (here, likely a regulation) will determine how many individuals 

 47 To avoid PRA requirements, we recommend that you do not use the questionnaires option.
77

this is. However, 30-40 participants is a common number. After the pile sorts, researchers

conduct a semi-structured interview with each participant to better understand why they have 

sorted as they have. Then the results of the sorts (as clarified through the semi-structured 

interviews) are run through a factor analysis to find similarities and differences and allow 

researchers to group the various views into a smaller number of meaningful bins. For a short 

description of the Q-methodology and how to use it, see DEFRA (2007:61) and Ozdemiroglu et 

al. (2006:27-28). See also a short video at: https://qmethod.org/resources/how2q/. Examples of 

the use of Q-methodology in fisheries include MacDonald et al. (2015), Albizua and Zografos 

(2014), and Wainger et al. (2017).

e. Analyzing the focus group data

For general discussion, focus group transcripts can be analyzed in the same way as semistructured interview transcripts (described above), either simply as Word documents or with 

qualitative data analysis software. For Delphi and Q Methodology, see discussion and 

references above, under 4.d., Conducting the focus groups.

7. Surveys

In general, there are five main stages to a survey research project: (1) initial planning and 

project set-up, (2) survey development and testing, (3) testing survey protocols and making final 

approvals, (4) full survey implementation, and (5) post-implementation activities. With specific 

application to surveys conducted for U.S. fisheries, Lew and Himes-Cornell (2011) provide 

general protocols and best practices for each of these stages. This Handbook describes some 

of the key considerations.

We especially note the issue of final approvals (part of stage (3) in the previous 

paragraph). This refers to required actions under the PRA. A package of information specific to 

the PRA (the PRA package) must be submitted to the federal Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) for approval prior to conducting the survey. Sometimes your PRA package may be sent 

back for revisions before approval is granted. See section 1 of this Appendix for more detail.

a. Creating the survey

In order to develop a survey of fisheries stakeholders, there are a number of things to 

keep in mind. First of all, an important consideration in survey research is the length of time it 

takes to develop and test a survey instrument and obtain any necessary approvals. Further, a 

survey aimed at fisheries stakeholders should be developed with the buy-in of key members of 

the target population and fisheries management agencies (NMFS, the Council, tribes and other 

indigenous groups, perhaps state fisheries management agencies or regional Marine Fisheries

Commissions) to minimize both duplication and implementation challenges (Lew and HimesCornell 2011). Depending on your relationship with the fishery participants and their views on

the management measure of interest, it may be quick to get their buy in or it may take a lot of 

time to gain their trust and convince them that it is worthwhile to participate in the survey.
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Surveys should generally have modules that are cohesive and attempt to gather specific 

data to answer particular research questions. A key problem here to be aware of is that surveys 

often become too long when there are too many research questions being addressed and too 

many modules included as a result. It is best to keep the survey as focused as possible on a 

few key research questions and tailor the modules to those. Of course, include all the usual 

suspects (demographics, etc.). Finally, there are a number of different types of surveys one 

might consider depending upon what research question is being asked. Replicating a crosssectional or intercept survey over time is one way to gather data using new modules, while 

keeping a few core modules.

b. Beta testing

Before finalizing the survey, it must be beta tested. This process can help to refine answer 

categories for multiple-choice questions and to narrow questions to those most effective in 

soliciting the information you are looking for. One way to do this is by surveying 9 or fewer 

people with one survey instrument or dividing the questions into more than one instrument and 

testing each of these with 9 or fewer people. Each version can include a small number of

identifying or sorting questions, in addition to the actual survey questions themselves. Another is 

by holding a focus group of no more than 9 people or two focus groups of fewer than 9 people 

total (e.g., one of 4 people and one of 5). 

c. Choosing a sampling strategy

Two basic sampling strategies are appropriate for large-scale surveys: random sampling, 

and intercept sampling. Random sampling is the gold standard, but requires a known sample 

frame: a list of permit holders, for example. However, for some populations such as fishing 

vessel crew in most U.S. regions, there is no sample frame. Even in Alaska, where there are 

state crew licenses to create a frame, NMFS does not have access to contact information for 

those crew. In addition, for some tribal and other indigenous groups, fishing permits are not 

required. In these cases, intercept sampling may be the only option. An intercept survey can be 

conducted at docks, marinas and other locations where fishermen tend to congregate. All 

available fishermen found in places where fishermen congregate can be approached, at random 

times and locations within ports systematically selected using multivariate criteria, e.g., taking 

the total number of vessel owners in a fishery that landed fish in each port in the previous year 

and multiplying that by an average number of crew per vessel (as estimated by NMFS or other 

experts). From this an estimated sample frame can be created and a target sample size 

assigned. Pollnac and Poggie (1978:365) found this an effective method for achieving a high

respondent participation rate, and a sample obtained in this manner can be conceptualized as a 

sample from the universe of all hypothetically possible data sets collected under the same 

conditions (see also Chein 1976, Thomas 1976, Freund 1960). Vessel owners and permit 

holders can also be asked for lists of employees and/or permission to contact their employees. 

In general, when approaching crew at their vessel, it is customary to seek approval from 
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captains, if they are available, to speak to their crew. When appropriate, appointments can be 

made at a time and location of the interviewee’s choosing.

d. Choosing a survey method

There are many options when choosing a survey method. Some of the primary methods 

are: in-person, phone, mail, internet, or some combination of these. Bernard (2006, Chapter 10) 

provides an extensive description of various survey methods and the advantages and 

disadvantages of each. Dillman et al. (2009, 2011, 2014) provide excellent advice as well, 

especially on how to conduct multi-method surveys.

e. Analysis of survey data

Analysis of survey data will require familiarity with more than simple descriptive statistics. 

For those not familiar with statistical analysis, it will be important to connect with colleagues, 

including statisticians and/or economists, to make a plan for analysis. It is necessary to report 

the overall survey response rate and describe the potential for any bias in the results from nonresponse. And regardless of how the data are analyzed, it will be necessary to assess the 

accuracy and validity of the responses. To do this, one key procedure is to analyze the pool of 

respondents. Some things to consider are (1) the evenness of coverage of the target population; 

(2) the suitability of the sampling strategy in the light of field experience and findings, 

sophistication, and uniformity of response elicitation and accuracy of recording survey 

responses; (3) the efficacy of measures to prevent, compensate for, and understand nonresponse to the survey overall or individual questions; and (4) the quality of data entry, cleaning,

and metadata recording. In some cases, it may be necessary to weight the survey responses in 

order to correct for potential biases in the sample population that filled out the survey as 

compared with the whole population. See Colburn et al. (2015:9-13) for an example of a 

Research Methods section for a survey report.

At the most basic level, survey question responses should be presented with summary 

statistics and variance (e.g., standard error and confidence intervals). Additional analysis will 

have to be tailored to the type of questions the survey asks. Three common types of questions 

are multiple choice, open-ended, and Likert scale. With multiple choice questions, data can be 

explored and reported in one-way tables (simple tables providing frequency counts of 

responses) and cross tabulations (one table per question with the first column as respondent 

categories and the column headers as the possible answers). For purely qualitative survey 

responses, such as those collected in open-ended questions, it is possible to convert the 

answers into quantitative data by grouping responses into nominal, mutually exclusive codes 

and then analyzing the frequency of use of those codes. The frequency of these codes in the 

responses can be reported in the same types of tables described above for multiple choice 

questions. For the more statistically inclined, the responses can be used to create more 

complex statistical models. For Likert scale data, responses can be reported in percentage 

terms of which responses were chosen most frequently. 
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There are many resources available that present general best practices for (1) analyzing 

survey responses, (2) maximizing item and unit response, (3) minimizing biases, and (4) 

generally producing surveys that will yield high quality information. For more details on 

conducting surveys and analyzing data from them, the following resources may be useful: Lew 

and Himes-Cornell (2011), Dillman et al. (2009, 2014), Rea and Parker (2005), Groves et al. 

(2011), URSSC (2001), and Lew et al. (2015).