Practical considerations for operationalizing dynamic management tools

Abstract

1. Dynamic management (DM) is a novel approach to spatial management that aligns scales of environmental variability, animal movement and human uses. While static approaches to spatial management rely on one-time assessments of biological, environmental, economic, and/or social conditions, dynamic approaches repeatedly assess conditions to produce regularly updated management recommendations. Owing to this complexity, particularly regarding operational challenges, examples of applied DM are rare. To implement DM, scientific methodologies are operationalized into tools, i.e., self-contained workflows that run automatically at a prescribed temporal frequency (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly). 2.Here we present a start-to-finish framework for operationalizing DM tools, consisting of four stages: Acquisition, Prediction, Dissemination, and Automation. We illustrate this operationalization framework using an applied DM tool as a case study.3. Our DM tool operates in near real-time and was designed to maximize target catch and minimize bycatch of non-target and protected species in a US-based commercial fishery. It is important to quantify the sensitivity of DM tools to missing data, because dissemination streams for observed (i.e., remotely sensed or directly sampled) data can experience delays or gaps. To address this issue, we perform a detailed example sensitivity analysis using our case study tool. 4. Synthesis and applications. Dynamic management (DM) tools are emerging as viable management solutions to accommodate the biological, environmental, economic, and social variability in our fundamentally dynamic world. Our four-stage operationalization framework and case study can facilitate the implementation of DM tools for a wide array of resource and disturbance management objectives. K E Y W O R D S dynamic management, ecological modelling, fisheries bycatch, near real-time, nowcast, operationalization, sensitivity analysis, spatial management This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Product: The end output of a DM tool that prescribes a management recommendation and optionally contains associated metadata Latency: The temporal delay in the dissemination of DM products or BEES data Contingency plan: A set of rules that govern DM tools' operational responses to missing or sparse BEES data | 461

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