Using decision analysis to incorporate ecological and social science into barrier removal decisions

Session: Great Lakes Fish Habitat Priorities Development, Implementation, and Adaptive Management (3)

Kelly Robinson, Michigan State University, [email protected]
Hsien-Yung Lin, Michigan State University, [email protected]
Lisa Walter, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, [email protected]

Abstract

Decision-making related to Great Lakes barrier removals is challenging for management agencies and stakeholder groups. Decision support tools have been developed to prioritize barrier removals by providing cost-benefit analyses for sets of barriers in a predefined area. These tools can consider different contexts such as climate change, connectivity, or sedimentation, and optimization tools exist that allow decision makers to fully evaluate the benefits of connectivity and removal costs. However, objectives for barrier removals are often situation specific, and these tools cannot account for all possible objectives. Decision analysis (i.e., structured decision making and adaptive management) can provide a decision-aiding framework for prioritizing barriers for removal based on multiple objectives, including ecological concerns like connectivity, predicted fish production, and sedimentation, as well as social and economic concerns like safety and costs of removal and lampricide application. Through decision analysis, stakeholder values can be elicited and used, in concert with decision support tools, to predict the ecological and social outcomes associated with the removal or remediation of barriers. These predictions can then be used to evaluate important tradeoffs among objectives, providing a more holistic approach to prioritizing barrier removals.

Twitter handle of presenter
@KFilerRobinson