Data e-Infrastructure Initiative for Fisheries Management and Conservation of Marine Living Resources iMarine

1.13Contribution to socio-economic impacts

Socio-Economic Impacts

The welfare of marine living resources and their balance in nature is not only a concern restricted to marine ecosystems but may seriously affect the economy at local, regional, and global scale. Frequently, human activities have an economic outlook but in deriving such benefits one must be well informed of the balances and the possible reduction in biodiversity in extensive geographic ecosystems. The challenge is to balance benefits and costs that are both of economic and ecological nature to sustain the continuous use of open-seas and oceans. Actions that invariable tend to increase economic productivity and the well-being of societal groups, have contributed to the vulnerability of ecosystems worldwide. Taken without expeditious evaluation of accumulated empirical data about the status of ecosystems, our daily choices and decisions will surely generate heavy economic losses and social changes in the long term. For example, the introduction of black bass into regions that “pescado blanco and charal” [11] grew for thousands of years in the Americas created not only high economic losses but also forced social changes in the indigenous populations. It is critical for naturalists, field-workers and policy makers to understand the relationship between economic choices and the health of the ecosystems affected. If countries protect their ecosystems, they protect human health, production standards, un-interruptive access to overseas markets for local products, and beyond and above all, they grow confident of the long term security and cultural identity. The iMarine project will play a pivotal role as, through its rich-data-based approach, will enable comprehensive computational methods for improved fishery management of marine living resource conservation and empower thus far isolated pertinent approaches to reach well informed and judicious verdicts as far as fishery human activity is concerned.

Socio-economic impacts can be classified into two broad categories: market and non-market impacts. The former have mostly to do with the changes in prices of commodities and the latter with changes occurring in the ecosystems themselves. Market impacts imply reduced productivity of fish products sold in the marketplace. For example, excessive fishing shall steadily yield losses in production and reduction in aquaculture commodities. This in turn will affect availability of species and contribute to biodiversity reduction in ecosystems from one hand. On the other, people whose welfare is affected will be part in local depressed communities and markets. Non-market impacts entail potential risks to human capital due to illness or death as result of poor living conditions, increases in transactional costs for business, decline in social capital and last but not least, decline in natural capital due to the deterioration or permanent damage of the ecosystems. The value of such non-market aspects is tremendous.

The distribution of the above impacts has to be considered as well. A large fraction of human population -not only those living near coastal line but also beyond- rely on fish and marine commodities for their nutrition. Individuals who are in the business of treating, storing, shipping and serving fish-products will all be affected. Those within the lower income brackets will feel more severe impact. Public policy bodies have an obligation to understand the underpinnings of such business and societal changes, ascertain costs involved, draft contingency plans and act upon when required.

The iMarine project will assist in handling all aspects of ecosystems in a comprehensive data-intensive way, helping alleviate long standing issues in fishery management and marine living resource conservation:

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   judiciously reveal and better visualize market, non-market impacts and geographic inequities;
   

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   help understand the benefit and the extend of required human intervention to alleviate pressure from endangered ecosystems;
   
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   gauge the different market level impacts that we may have once we apply stepwise corrective actions to re-establish biodiversity when this is feasible;
   
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   provide the quantitative means to policy makers for reaching the best possible decisions for the sustainability of regional and continental ecosystems;
   
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   offer enhanced and more comprehensive monitoring of existing conditions in ecosystems and derivation of more accurate forecasts of their species populations.
   

In general, sustainability is considered one of the global drivers of change across all industries, sectors and countries. Making better use of natural resources will be hugely important and tightly regulated issues in the future. The iMarine data e-Infrastructure will provide the critical computational and informational elements to allow the members of the EA-CoP to come up with the best-educated decisions for long-term sustainable impact.

Environmental Impacts

The main motivation for the proposed iMarine effort emanates from the recognition of the vital role that oceans and seas play on Earth and its climatic systems coupled with the tremendous impact that human-inflicted changes in the sea and coastline may have on both the marine living resources as well as the well-being and economic environment of millions of people around the world. Unfortunately, according to the UN, almost 50% of the oceans’ fish is already close to the limits of sustainability and another 28% is either overfished or nearing extinction. Despite this difficult environmental situation, social situations raise difficult dilemmas that require very careful studying before obtaining a balanced answer. Just as an example, how will we meet the demand for fish, which is expected to increase by 50% between now and 2050 to help satisfy a need for developing countries’ diets change for more protein-rich foods such as red meat and consequently fish? [14] The answer is far from obvious.

Clearly, we cannot turn time back for many marine living resources. Nevertheless, armed with the new data infrastructure to be established and operated by iMarine, we will be able to manage, process, and analyze the rapidly-produced voluminous datasets that represent the heartbeat of marine life, use that to increase our knowledge and improve our understanding of the marine world, and eventually help restore the functioning of marine ecosystems so they can be productive, healthy, and sustainable. In parallel, juxtaposition of environmental and socio-economic data through the appropriate iMarine data infrastructure services will shed light onto potential balance points between the conflicting forces underlying dilemmas like the one exemplified above, allowing humanity to make wise educated decisions for the benefit of both human and marine life together.

Promoting Innovation and Developing Appropriate Skills in Europe

As emphasized earlier, the overall concept and objectives of the iMarine proposal is perfectly aligned with the spirit of the policy on ICT infrastructures for e-Science described in the recent Communication “ICT Infrastructures for e-Science”¹⁹, which highlighted the key role of e-infrastructures as a crucial asset underpinning European research and innovation policies. Such a role has also been endorsed by the Competitiveness Council (3 December 2009). Promoting scientific excellence, improving accessibility, assessing infrastructures transformative impact on science and their capacity to act as innovation platforms and precursors for the ICT markets were the key points agreed. The recent “Digital Agenda for Europe” (DAE) Communication²⁰ (conceived as one of the flagships of “Europe 2020: A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth", providing a policy framework that aims at delivering sustainable economic and social benefits from a single digital market based on fast and ultra-fast Internet and interoperable applications) adds that “Europe should also build its innovative advantage in key areas through reinforced infrastructures”. Among others such as GÉANT and EGI, it highlights scientific data infrastructures as key infrastructure components with increasing attention. As such, it becomes evident that the iMarine data infrastructure will be right in the middle of the critical path of the efforts to promote technological as well as scientific innovation in Europe, for the great variety of disciplines involved in fishery management and marine living resource conservation.

Regarding the human capital in the iMarine environment, its diversity and richness is directly derived by the constituency of the EA-CoP. The iMarine project will have the advantage of carefully selecting engaging representatives of the EA-CoP for the iMarine Board, who will play a vital role in bringing substantial datasets to the infrastructure. Through their active presence in iMarine activities, they will also serve as role models and educators to younger scientists, engineers, managers, and policy makers, who will have the great opportunity of developing their skills next to them. Moreover, due to its substantial size and the breadth and depth of its available data and services, the younger EA-CoP members’ exposure to and practice with the iMarine data infrastructure will be ideal for the development of state-of-the-art skills in the relevant domains. The fact that this will be a joint effort involving mixed teams from different fields will be an additional benefit as it will cultivate multidisciplinarity and collaboration skills. In turn, through all these, iMarine will have great socio-economic impact for European industry and government, as these are the likely employers of these scientists, engineers, managers, and policy makers during the project and beyond.