Prediction of marine ecosystem health: a decision support tool for coastal management

加拿大有一个巨大的沿海地区，正在进行各种用途，包括工业，渔业，水产养殖，旅游业，住宅和农业。在许多情况下，引入沿海河口和海湾的物质在其他方面是有毒或有害的，例如刺激植物过度生长的营养物质。负面影响会影响这些地区的完整性，损害所谓的生态系统健康。各种政府机构都有监督沿海地区和维护生态系统健康的任务。这种保护的一个方面涉及在负面影响之前进行预测，以便能够将鱼类植物排放等活动控制在不损害生态系统的水平。我们的目标是在拟议的研究是开发简单的工具，为管理人员提供预测能力。基于对不同过程如何引入和去除水和底质中各种物质的理解，我们将得出一系列生态系统健康指数。我们将使用统计技术，以避免任意构建的指数，并产生一个软件系统，以选择不同的指数在促进生态系统健康的整体指标的相对重要性。我们与加拿大渔业和海洋部、加拿大环境部和几个省级机构合作，打算提供一个决策支持工具，以提高管理沿海地区的能力。

Canada has a huge coastal zone undergoing a variety of uses including industry, fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, residential, and agriculture. In many cases, substances introduced to coastal estuaries and bays are toxic or harmful in other ways, e.g. nutrients stimulating excess plant growth. Negative impacts affect the integrity of these areas, harming what is referred to as ecosystem health. Various government agencies have a mandate to oversee the coastal zone and maintain ecosystem health. One aspect of this protection involves prediction in advance of negative effects so that an activity such as fish plant discharge can be regulated to a level that does  not harm the ecosystem. Our goal in the proposed research is to develop simple tools to provide managers with predictive capability. Based on an understanding of how different processes introduce and remove various materials in the water and bottom sediments, we will derive a series of indices of ecosystem health. We willuse statistical techniques to avoid arbitrary construction of indices and produce a software system to select the relative importance of different indices in contributing to an overall indicator of ecosystem health. Working with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment Canada, and several provincial agencies, we intend to deliver a decision support tool that will enable further capability to manage the coastal zone.