This decade presents unique opportunities to realize a vision of interdisciplinary marine resource management that balances conservation, preservation, industry profitability, food production, jobs, and human wellbeing.
The core mission of NOAA Fisheries is to maximize the net benefits to the Nation from our marine resources. Managing marine ecosystems requires solutions that define what the best uses of our resources are – and to consider economic and social drivers side-by-side with biological and other environmental elements of the ecosystem. Achieving this requires understanding the benefits and costs of different ocean uses and actions, which involves data collection, economic and other statistical analyses, and the creation of strategies and solutions that provide the right incentives to fishers and other stakeholders to use resources efficiently and sustainably. Humans and the environment are not separate boxes to study, but parts of a coupled system that requires interdisciplinary science and policy analysis to effectively and sustainably manage. The increasingly dynamic physical, ecological, economic, and social environment in which we live makes the timely analysis of our human-natural ecosystem more valuable than ever.
NOAA Fisheries’ Economics and Human Dimensions Research Program (Program) performs an essential role in enabling NOAA Fisheries to achieve its mission of science-based stewardship of the Nation's living marine resources. Integration of economics and human dimensions research into NOAA’s science portfolio helps ensure that scientific findings inform key management decisions and provide the greatest benefits possible. The Program informs decision makers and the public of economic and other social trade-offs in fishery regulatory decisions, in protected species actions, and among competing ocean and coastal uses such as wind energy and whale watching. The Program also contributes to the development of innovative and cost-effective management frameworks that aim to achieve the greatest level of conservation at the lowest cost which is a central element of NOAA’s mission. While in the past integration has been done successfully, we now have opportunities – and needs – to expand this integration to address a more dynamic environment and global seafood market.
Robust economic and social analyses provide improved management, healthier ecosystems, better seafood, more profitable businesses, innovative interdisciplinary science, and more sustainable communities through more efficient and well informed trade-offs and a better understanding of how Americans value and use our marine resources. We have the opportunity to better integrate social and natural science and management to achieve ‘Human Integrated Ecosystem Based Fishery Management’.
This decade presents unique opportunities to realize a vision of interdisciplinary marine resource management that balances conservation, preservation, industry profitability, food production, jobs, and human wellbeing. NOAA Fisheries’ Economics and Human Dimensions Research Program is a world-class social science research program that provides economic and sociocultural information and analysis that informs marine resource management decision-making undertaken to achieve healthy marine ecosystems and resilient coastal communities and economies. More than any other nation, the US has recognized that managing ecosystems is about managing people and that effective and efficient regulations can greatly increase the benefits to the Nation from our oceans.
Central to NOAA’s mission is the recognition that mangers have to make tradeoffs among competing potential resource users. Tradeoffs are a core concept of economics and Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM), which aims specifically to “enable better decisions regarding trade-offs among and between fisheries (commercial, recreational, and subsistence), aquaculture, protected species, biodiversity, and habitats.”[1] Similarly, the U.S. National Standards provide 10 key areas that NOAA Fisheries must consider when managing the Nation’s marine resources, which include fishing communities. The effective usage of socioeconomic data and research can create win-win management measures that create a healthier environment and more prosperous and resilient communities and businesses. Regardless of whether one prioritizes conservation, community resilience, or seafood business profitability, Human Integrated EBFM enables the best tradeoffs among competing uses of our oceans.
Key analytical mandates for the Program stem from agency policies, federal legislation and executive orders, including the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act. To fulfill these mandates, Program staff undertake data collection, benefit-cost analysis, economic and social impact analysis, and assessments of equity, safety, and environmental justice. These assessments are used by the Agency and the Fishery Management Councils to inform management decisions. Beyond these specifically mandated analyses, Program staff conduct economic and human dimensions research to better understand fisheries and marine resource management issues. This research can help frame an emerging management issue in a particular region or contribute to national policy creation and improvement. Several recent strategic documents, such as the NOAA Fisheries Climate Science Strategy[2] and NOAA’s Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management Policy and Roadmap, have highlighted the importance of economic and social analysis.
One of the challenges in defining the focus of economic and social research in NOAA Fisheries is the wide variety of issues across which the Program operates. From spatial management to bycatch reduction, from protected resources to seafood markets, from catch shares to community vulnerability, researchers and analysts provide diverse contributions to a breadth of topics central to NOAA’s mission. This makes it challenging to narrowly define research priorities for the Program, as a better understanding of the many aspects of human behavior can greatly improve marine resource management. Here we label the widespread integration of human and natural science and data as ‘Human Integrated Ecosystem Based Fishery Management’ (HI-EBFM), recognizing the necessary and expansive role of social science in EBFM.
Currently, the Program has 58 economists and 14 human dimension scientists with expertise in anthropology, sociology, and marine resource management (see Figure 1). We note that the designations of ‘human dimensions’ and ‘social science’ can be ambiguous at times because they both can include economics, but given the large proportion of Program staff who are economists and our many economics mandates, we separately denote economists as a group of specialists. Staff are distributed among twelve locations, including six science centers, five regional offices, and the Office of Science and Technology (F/ST) and the Office of Sustainable Fisheries (F/SF) at NOAA Fisheries Headquarters.
F/ST serves as the national coordinating body for the Agency’s research at the science centers while F/SF fulfills a similar role the regional offices. The efforts include a wide variety of contributions from economists and social scientists across NOAA to scientific advisory bodies, management reviews and analyses, and diverse initiatives to support our partner management organizations. A Senior Scientist for Economics position was created in 2011 and filled in 2013.
To implement Human Integrated EBFM, the Program will continue to emphasize its core areas of research, but will conduct a range of innovative work that will best meet the three primary goals articulated in the NOAA Fisheries Strategic Plan:
The central actions across the primary themes of the Program can be summarized as: 1) Investigate and Understand, 2) Integrate and Predict, and 3) Communicate Science. Here we elaborate on these three organizing principles and describe key specific steps that we will take.
Investigate and understand. Across the Program, research is a central component of our work. This includes collecting data, examining statistical relationships, and communicating with stakeholders and other scientists to better understand what factors drive human interactions with the marine ecosystem. Specifically, we will:
Integrate and Predict. The integration of economic, social, biological, oceanographic, and other data provides the most comprehensive understanding of our relationship with marine resources. Predicting the effects of fishery management actions and the long-term effects of rapidly changing environmental drivers is foundational to this science program. We will:
Communicate Science. Effective communication involves both publishing science in leading peer-reviewed journals and pursuing multiple means to reach diverse stakeholders and decision makers. We will:
The remainder of this document describes the Program’s ongoing and future work, organized into five applied themes through which we implement the three pillars of the program above: commercial fisheries economics, recreational fisheries economics, human dimensions, integrated ecosystem research, and communications research. Our discussion of these themes is structured by goals that reflect both Agency priorities and, to the extent possible, the Program’s organizational structure.
The NOAA Fisheries Commercial Fisheries Economics theme includes a wide range of commercial fisheries data collection, economic analyses, and related activities. These efforts enable NOAA Fisheries to assess the magnitude and distribution of the costs and benefits associated with fisheries management actions and directly supports Fishery Management Council decisions. This research theme directly supports NOAA Fisheries’ stewardship goal of maximizing benefits to the Nation while ensuring the long-term sustainability of all living marine resources.
Economic data underpin all of NOAA Fisheries’ economic assessments. These data, collected by NOAA Fisheries and its state partners, are essential to understanding the status and trends of the fishing industry, marine-related businesses, food security and trade balances, and consumer benefits. NOAA Fisheries conducts a suite of baseline economic assessments that support fishery management and conservation measures, underscore the importance of the fishing industry to community and state economies, and may also be used as signals for identifying economic hardship in its early stages of crises such as hurricanes or marine heat waves.
Priority Research Activities
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Box 1. Economic Performance of Catch Share Programs Nationwide, there are 17 federal catch share programs currently in operation. Six of the eight Federal Fishery Management Councils have implemented at least one program; the Alaska region has the most programs. Since 2012, the economic performance of catch share fisheries has been tracked using a standard set of indicators that are uniformly applied across these highly diverse programs. These include revenue, quota utilization, and prices; fishing capacity; distributional effects; and a limited number of metrics for characterizing the management context (whether quotas are increasing/decreasing, whether the annual quota was exceeded, whether the race for fish has been eliminated). Similar metrics have been applied to select non-catch share fisheries. |
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Box 2. Economic Contribution of Seafood Industry and Saltwater Angler Expenditures Recreational fishing and the commercial fishing and seafood industry are important drivers of coastal economies and contribute to sustainable working waterfronts. NOAA Fisheries measures the contribution of these sectors to local and national economies by developing models to estimate associated economic impacts, e.g., jobs, sales, value-added, to gross domestic (state) product. These models are also applied to assess how changes in fishery regulations and natural or human-made disasters may affect a regional economy and its dependence on fishing and other seafood sector activities. |
A critical part of the responsibilities of NOAA Fisheries is considering economic aspects of regulation of commercial fisheries. National Standards in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, along with Executive Orders and other mandates, require NOAA to estimate the costs and benefits of regulatory options under consideration and understand their impacts. In addition, it is increasingly important to consider the effects of environmental changes and variation on harvesters’ behavior. Predicting fishery changes and the trade-offs of regulations in a changing environment requires models that incorporate these drivers. Providing this information to Fishery Management Councils in a timely manner allows for more robust and inclusive consideration of management alternatives.
Priority Research Activities
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Box 3. FishSET – Spatial Economics Toolbox NOAA Fisheries and partners have developed the Spatial Economics Toolbox (FishSET) to improve information provided to managers of the economic tradeoffs among different uses of marine resources. FishSET provides tools for data management, model and model validation, and policy simulation. In Alaska, FishSET has been used to assess the impacts of closed areas, catch shares, climate change, and bycatch avoidance on commercial fisheries. A pilot application in the Gulf of Mexico grouper fishery assessed the effects of the grouper/tilefish catch share program. Additional applications of FishSET could include analysis of losses from fishing ground closures due to regulations, ocean energy sitings, and oil spills. |
The Program conducts analyses to understand the markets for finfish, shellfish, and other marine resources. This includes the interaction between U.S. managed capture and aquaculture resources with foreign supplies, consumer preferences, direct markets, market structure, and seafood labeling. These studies cover markets at the retail level as well as other levels in the supply chain.
Priority Research Activities
Program researchers take diverse roles in analyzing proposed regulations and proposing possible solutions. Members of the Program have been involved in policy innovation, particularly using market-based approaches, throughout the country which has helped create an ever-more-effective management system. This type of innovation will be even more valuable in the future as the dynamics of the economy and environment impact the existing management systems.
Priority Research activities
The NOAA Fisheries Recreational Economics theme provides data, analysis, and expertise to assess the benefits and costs of alternative management actions, to prioritize management needs, and to facilitate policy design that maximizes societal benefits related to marine recreational fishing resources. NOAA recreational data collection and research also seeks to better understand stakeholder perceptions and preferences related to current fisheries management and ecosystem-based fisheries management. This is an important source of information for Fishery Management Councils in determining recreational management actions and in transparently informing decisions that have to be made across recreational, commercial, and other uses of fishery resources.
Recreational fishing participants spend money on a variety of goods and services related to their fishing activities. These expenditures are associated with a single fishing trip or are goods that are purchased for use on multiple trips (such as a boat or fishing rods). NOAA Fisheries, in conjunction with its state partners, collects data from fishing participants to understand what they purchase, how much they spend, and how spending on recreational fishing contributes to local and regional economies. Data on other aspects of recreational fishing are also collected, such as from recreational fishing businesses (e.g., the for-hire sector that includes charter boats, headboats/partyboats, and guideboats). These data and the models they inform are useful for establishing a baseline description of the size and extent of recreational fishing activities and their effect on fishing-related industries in a region (e.g., bait and tackle shops, tournaments, and marinas). This information can also be used to assess community recreational fishing engagement and recreational fishing reliance. Changes in recreational fishing activity (demand) can be estimated in relation to changes in management policies, natural disasters, or other external economic or environmental events.
Priority Research Activities
In order to understand the benefits that recreational fishing provides to fishery participants, NOAA Fisheries collects data on a participant’s actual behavior (revealed preference data) as well as data under proposed hypothetical conditions (stated preference data). These data also can be used to estimate economic benefits associated with actual or proposed changes to recreational fishing activity. This information is needed in benefit-cost analyses which are often required by law and used to evaluate management options and projects that affect fisheries (such as dam removal), natural resource damage assessment (such as an oil spill), and allocation of quota among recreational and commercial sectors.
Research Activities
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Box 4. BLAST MODEL – Dynamic Decision Support Tool The Bioeconomic Length-structured Angler Simulation Tool (BLAST) is a dynamic decision support tool for assessing the benefits associated with common recreational fishing management actions including changes in bag limits, season length, and re-building plans. This ecosystem approach to fisheries management that integrates recreational fishing behavior with age-structured stock assessment models provides insight into the short- and long-run effects of alternative policy options on both the economic and environmental health of recreational fisheries. Lauded by recreational fishing stakeholders for the transparency it brings to management decision-making, BLAST improves assessment quality while enabling economists to assess a greater number of management options in a fraction of the time. First implemented in the Northeast and approved for use by the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils, an expansion of the BLAST model to the West Coast and Gulf of Mexico is currently in development. |
Human Dimensions research focuses on the complex interactions among individuals, fishing communities, and coastal and marine ecosystems. Fishing communities comprise a wide range of participants beyond those directly involved in fishing (e.g., shore support businesses such as net makers, gear manufacturers, bait and tackle stores, and diverse businesses that provide services to fishery participants). Human Dimensions research recognizes and addresses the complexities of fishing communities and allows decision makers to assess management strategies to maintain thriving communities, while promoting sustainable fisheries and healthy ecosystems. The Program’s research in human dimensions seeks to highlight the strengths and vulnerabilities of coastal communities and their ability to respond and adapt to a rapidly changing ocean.
Fishery conservation and management measures are required to take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities. Baseline information on the characteristics and features of these communities is an essential component for ensuring the sustained participation of fishing communities, as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act National Standard 8.
Priority Research Activities
Fishing communities can be vulnerable to disruption of fishery resources (e.g., changing abundance levels, shifts in geographic distribution of stocks) and to hazards (e.g., pandemics, flooding, hurricanes and coastal storms). The ability of communities to overcome these disruptions depends on their social, economic, and cultural characteristics, which vary from community to community, by region, and through time. Understanding how communities change over time requires baseline information to assess vulnerability and resilience historically and into the future (see Figure 2). With this baseline information, we can better understand and measure any increasing or decreasing social vulnerability and community resilience and help managers, communities, and individuals adapt to change.
Priority Research Activities
The NOAA Fisheries human dimensions theme includes analyses to understand the well-being of fishery participants and fishing communities for use in federal management and policy making. Fishery participants in these studies include commercial, recreational, and subsistence harvesters and their families and related shoreside fishing-dependent businesses such as seafood dealers and processors, gear manufacturers, marine supply companies, and bait and tackle businesses.
Priority Research Activities
The NOAA Fisheries human dimensions theme has long focused on the need to describe and understand diverse communities and to respond to environmental justice goals and mandates (e.g., Executive Order 12898).
The increased awareness of racial challenges that pervade many aspects of American life reinforces the need to understand how marine resource management and environmental change impact diverse groups of Americans. The NOAA Fisheries Human Dimensions Program has studied this question for more than two decades and is focused on better recognizing that ocean and coastal environments – and management choices about them - have different impacts on different groups. Better defining the complexity of how people relate to the environment will enable us to improve resource access and increase the value for Americans of all genders and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.
Priority Research Activities and Program Commitments
Economic and human dimensions research are essential elements of managing natural resources in an ecosystem framework. Two Program goals that directly support an ecosystem-based management approach are 1) integrated modeling of human interactions with and dependence on marine ecosystems using frameworks such as Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEA) and Management Strategy Evaluations (MSE); and 2) valuation of goods and services provided by marine ecosystems, such as recreational opportunities, habitat for marine organisms, and cultural and aesthetic benefits.
Marine ecosystems contain complex interconnections among ecosystem components, including the large roles played by humans. Economic and human dimensions research can contribute to understanding these relationships within marine ecosystems and to developing integrated models to support the conservation and management of marine and coastal resources. Modeling and evaluation frameworks may contribute to integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs), management strategy evaluations (MSEs), and other frameworks that facilitate an ecosystem-based management approach. These frameworks further the Agency’s specific goals towards ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) and broader ecosystem-based management (EBM) research needs. Partnering with other NOAA scientists (biologists, ecologists, economists, human dimensions scientists, oceanographers, etc.) and academic partners will be essential to achieving this goal.
Priority Research Activities
Ecosystem services are the outcomes of ecosystem functions that provide value to people. Identifying and valuing these services provides crucial information for understanding human interactions with and the benefits they derive from marine ecosystems. This enables managers to identify preferred strategies for sustaining – or enhancing - these ecosystem services.
Priority Research Activities
A core activity of NOAA Fisheries is the estimation of marine species abundance which allows fishers to sustainably and profitably harvest marine resources. An improved integration of new Program tools and research will directly increase the economic benefits that we derive from targeted fish populations.
Priority Research Activities
The Program conducts research to better understand management objectives and public attitudes toward marine stewardship and public understanding of marine science. Key activities involve the development of innovative means of reaching diverse stakeholders and the scientific assessment of how effective outreach activities are.
In most cases, designing programs that result in widespread acceptance or adoption of policies or management actions that benefit a fishery, a community, and/or society at large is not straightforward. Understanding the social, economic, or cultural drivers and program designs that lead to support, opposition, or indifference to specific stewardship guidance could lead to increased effectiveness, reduced cost, and increased enjoyment by commercial and recreational fishery participants and other fishing-related businesses – and the general public. It can also lead to improved outcomes for local coastal communities.
Priority Research Activities
Data visualization tools can enable managers, stakeholders, and the general public to explore and analyze economic and social data. These tools – created in collaboration with agency data science experts - range from reporting basic information on landings and landings revenue to more advanced tools for exploring the economic performance of fleets (e.g., FishEYE), and the economic contribution of marine fisheries to state and regional economies (e.g., Fisheries Economics of the U.S. publications). The Social Indicators for Fishing Communities Mapping and Graphing Tool (see Box 5) allows users to explore the status of coastal communities and more fully understand their strengths and where pockets of vulnerable populations may reside.
Priority Research Activities
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Box 5. Social Indicators for Fishing Communities Mapping and Graphing Tool Understanding community vulnerability – both its source and magnitude – is a crucial first step in building resilient communities. NOAA developed the social indicators to improve managers’ understanding of fishing community vulnerability and resilience to regulatory change for use in fisheries social impact assessments. The web-based mapping and graphing tool was designed to improve the analytical rigor of fisheries social impact assessments and to make the social indicators easily accessible to all stakeholders including managers, policy makers, NGOs, academics, and the public. The web tool includes data for multiple time periods and for over 4,600 communities in coastal counties in 23 states. |
This document provides a vision of how the work of the Program can more effectively benefit the Nation and achieve NOAA’s goals. The NOAA Fisheries Economics and Human Dimensions Program will continue to support science-based decision-making that more fully considers social, cultural, economic, and ecological factors – while also increasing the Program’s integration with our natural science counterparts (e.g., fisheries biologists, ecologists, geneticists, and oceanographers) leading to better management decisions. We will continue to strive for innovation across all of our Program’s themes.
Economic and human dimensions capacity within and outside NOAA Fisheries is furthered by continuing to build collaborative research opportunities. These opportunities include forming research teams that include colleagues with diverse backgrounds, experience, and institutional perspectives, as well as mentoring the next generation of marine resource economists, environmental and ecological anthropologists, and other social and interdisciplinary scientists. For example, we have continued to provide funding for the NOAA Fisheries - Sea Grant Marine Resource Economics Graduate Fellowship program and to fund the research of many students and postdoctoral researchers who will be tomorrow’s marine management and research leaders in and out of NOAA. Building better relationships with domestic fishery stakeholders and the general public through participation in regional data committees and advisory bodies, as well as international management organizations, is essential to increasing agency capacity in these research areas.
Specific additional steps we will take in coming years to enhance our communications and research capacity include:
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BOX 6: Looking Ahead: Next Generation Fisheries Economics and Human Dimensions Beyond the future directions mentioned herein, there are global changes occurring that the Economic and Human Dimension research program must be prepared to address. Similar to other scientific disciplines, economics and other social sciences are experiencing major advances in methodology. Machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques are increasingly being applied in economic modeling and analysis of human behavior. Additionally, the availability of large high-resolution datasets of human activity provide opportunities for application to fisheries management issues, such as the understanding of on-water recreational and commercial angler behavior in response to changing conditions, or seafood purchasing patterns driven by the availability of wild and aquaculture seafood products in the same market. The Program will be challenged to provide management advice when fisheries are undergoing large-scale unprecedented changes driven by factors such as climate change, aquaculture, and the short and long-term impacts of COVID-19. The Economic and Human Dimension Program has contributed to analyses that deal with decision-making under multiple dimensions of uncertainty created by these forces and must continue to quickly identify, respond and adapt to a changing world. |
The Program’s history spans a broad range of research and policy applications. In the face of a dynamic world experiencing increased globalization and considerable uncertainty resulting from climate change, we will continue to implement effective socioeconomic data collection, interdisciplinary research, and innovative policy communication, among other program activities. Human Integrated EBFM provides the next generation of interdisciplinary fisheries management and science.
[1] NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management Policy available at https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/document/ecosystem-based-fisheries-management-policy
[2] https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/climate/noaa-fisheries-climate-science-strategy
[3] Governance institutions include, but are not limited to, harbor commissions, fishing associations, fishing cooperatives and local governance of waterfront construction and preservation.
[4] Jepson, Michael and Lisa L. Colburn. 2013. Development of Social Indicators of Fishing Community Vulnerability and Resilience in the U.S. Southeast and Northeast Regions. U.S. Dept. of Commerce., NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-129, 64 p.
Raw oysters on plate. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.
Scientists sample for pollock. Credit: NOAA Fisheries
NOAA Administrator, Dr. Richard Spinrad, Dick Jones of Blue Ocean Mariculture, and NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator, Janet Coit, at Seafood Expo North America in March 2022. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.
