Subject: IOOS and Ecosystems Management

Speaker: Phil Mundy, Director, AFSC Auke Bay Laboratory
When: Thursday, 16 March  2006, 10:00 a.m.- 11:00 a.m.
Where: Bldg. 4, Traynor Seminar Room, Rm. 2076,  AFSC, Sand Point Campus, Seattle

Dear Colleagues: Please join us for the upcoming seminar by Phil Mundy, the director of Auke Bay Laboratory. He will speak about: 1) the status and history of coastal ocean observing in Alaska, 2) the relation between the Integrated Ocean Observing System and Ecosystem Approach to Management, and 3) some opportunities for fishery surveys within IOOS.

Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and the Ecosystem
Approach to Management (EAM) of Marine Resources

Phil Mundy, Director
Alaska Fisheries Science Center
Auke Bay Laboratory
11305 Glacier Highway
Juneau, AK 99801

Abstract 

The boundaries between fisheries and oceanography of today were not present in the 19th century when NMFS was founded, at a time when gathering biological and oceanographic observations from the same platform at the same time was a common practice worldwide. In a historical context it is unremarkable that the first systematic cross shelf oceanographic observations in Alaskan waters were made by a fisheries agency (IFC, later IPHC) in 1927 - 1929.

Contemporary disciplinary boundaries explain why the U.S. IOOS, which has its roots in IOC Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), was predominantly concerned with physical measurements at its inception. As IOOS has developed, the boundaries of the definition of the “national backbone” of IOOS observations have expanded to include an ever wider variety of biological observations.

EAM has multiple precursors in NMFS some of which date to the 1950’s. EAM precursors did not come to fruition due to lack of both physical and biological data. IOOS represents an important opportunity to fill these data gaps. Properly designed and implemented, the ships, moorings and satellite coverages of IOOS are necessary but not alone sufficient to realize EAM.