Developing Dynamic Ecological Impact Assessment Models to Protect Canada's Oceans in the Emerging Blue Economy

加拿大政府正在制定一项蓝色经济计划，通过新兴海洋产业（如海底采矿和水产养殖）发展加拿大的海洋经济，同时在新的发展和气候变化面前保护加拿大的海洋生态系统。实现蓝色经济的承诺需要自然科学的工具和生态风险评估方法，以便做出明智的决策，避免对环境造成不必要的影响。然而，了解新的工业发展和气候影响如何相互作用以影响生态系统是一个新兴的研究领域，并且低估了新发展与气候变化相互作用所带来的风险，这可能导致蓝色经济计划失败。由于将人类活动和全球变化现象与特定的压力（造成生态危害的过程）和生态特征（如物种）联系起来，被称为“影响路径模型”的影响因果模型已被成功地用于理解和协助减轻影响的决策。然而，影响路径模型很少通过动态视角进行探索，本研究项目将开发解决新兴产业和持续危害暴露（如气候变化）背景下风险的方法。它还将通过将影响途径模型与生命阶段模型联系起来，促进我们对新兴产业面临风险的物种不断演变的脆弱性的理解。该计划的目标是开发新的模型和方法，以评估对加拿大海洋生态系统中濒危海洋物种和文化上重要物种的影响。它将汇编有关传统、当前和新兴产业、气候影响以及相关压力的现有数据。该计划还将开发动态网络模型，以了解人类活动的影响途径，它们之间的相互作用，以及影响的机制和程度如何随着新发展而变化。此外，还将开发不同生命阶段的濒危物种网络模型，以探索物种脆弱性如何随着时间的推移相对于多种活动和压力而变化。最后，将建立动态层次贝叶斯模型来评估气候灾害与濒危海洋物种新兴发展之间的相互作用。该项目将支持两名博士研究生和一名硕士研究生，以及两名本科生研究助理，通过数据库创建，模型和工具开发以及场景分析。我有推进生态风险评估的记录，并与一个积极推进生态风险评估科学的合作网络有联系，其中包括纪念大学及其海洋研究所的许多研究人员同事。总体而言，该计划旨在为蓝色经济规划（目前正在加拿大和国外进行）提供科学的决策支持工具，以从海洋开发中受益，同时确保生态保护。

The Government of Canada is developing a Blue Economy plan to grow Canada's ocean economy through emerging ocean industries (such as seabed mining and aquaculture) while protecting Canada's marine ecosystems in the face of new development and climate change. Meeting the promise of the Blue Economy requires natural science tools and approaches of ecological risk assessment in order to make informed decisions that avoid unnecessary impacts on the environment. However, understanding how new industrial development and climate impacts interact to affect ecosystems is an emerging area of study, and underappreciating the risk posed by new developments interacting with climate change and may lead to Blue Economy plans to fail. Causal models of impacts, called "impact pathway models" have been used successfully to understand and aid decisions to mitigate impacts, since they connect human activities and global change phenomena with specific pressures (processes that pose ecological hazards) and ecological characteristics (such as species). However, impact pathway models are rarely explored through a dynamic lens, and this research program will develop approaches to address risks from emerging industries and in contexts of continuous hazard exposure (such as climate change). It will also advance our understanding of evolving vulnerabilities of species at risk to emerging industries through linking impact pathway models with life-stage models. The objectives of this program are to develop new models and methods for assessing impact on endangered marine species and culturally important species in Canada ocean ecosystems. It will compile existing data on legacy, current, and emerging industries and climate impacts, and the associated pressures. The program will also develop dynamic network models to understand the impact pathways from human activities, their interactions, and how the mechanisms and magnitude of impacts change with new developments. Network models will also be developed relative to endangered species at different life stages to explore how species vulnerabilities can change relative to multiple activities and pressures over time. Finally, it will develop dynamic hierarchical Bayesian models to assess the interaction between climate hazards and emerging development on endangered marine species. This program will support two PhD students and one MSc student, as well as two undergraduate research assistants through database creation, model and tool development, and scenario analysis. I have a track record of advancing ecological risk assessment and am connected to a collaborative network all actively advancing the science of ecological risk assessment, including many researcher colleagues at Memorial University and it's Marine Institute. Overall, this program aims to provide scientific decision support tools for Blue Economy planning (now underway in Canada and abroad) to benefit from ocean development while ensuring ecological conservation.