Providing Support for Salmon Managers
The Likely Suspects Framework (LSF) aims to provide an intellectual and resourcing framework to assist cooperative research into salmon mortality drivers. LSF will provide managers with access to high value decision-support advice that considers the efficacy of their activities within the context of other factors at play (i.e. taking a full lifetime survival view). It will:
1) Encourage data mobilisation (Salmon and Ecosystem Data Hub (SalHub))
2) Provide an underlying modelling framework (Stage-state structured mortality mode)
3) Enable users to interact with the model via an online tool giving future scenario-testing functions (Salmon Management Decision Support Tool (DST))
What influences salmon growth and survival, and what can salmon managers do?
What the Decision Support Tool will be
The Decision Support Tool will be an online interface for salmon managers which extends beyond a generic population modeler by incorporating catchment-relevant background information and allowing the user to leverage their own expert knowledge. The tool 1) Enables hypotheses testing, 2) Provides a new full lifecycle view of population dynamics, and 3) Supports and inspires targeted salmon restoration efforts at scale and pace.
It will deliver:
The ability to optimise future restoration planning by focusing on the most effective actions.
Realistic expectations for what their interventions can achieve (scale needed, timescale for response), including uncertainties and risks.
Access to good resources to be able to discuss and appraise complex issues before committing resources.
The Decision Support Tool addresses the importance of being able to link marine and freshwater phases (i.e. a life-cycle view) and consider how changes in one or more stages could influence lifetime success (measured as numbers of adults returning to rivers and the egg deposition).
It will help managers to; maximise adult estuarine and in-river survival, maximise access and egg deposition rates , maximise smolt production from those eggs, and maximise marine survival chances of the smolts.
Outputs for Users
The DST will provide a targeting system to guide restoration actions most effectively in your own catchment, and a suite of non-prescriptive recommended management actions, tailored to your catchment.
Addressing important “what-if” management questions, such as the below, are the motivation behind the Likely Suspects Framework programme, and specifically how it is pulled together in a Salmon Management Decision Support Tool.
Where in the life cycle could positive actions be made to improve the situation?
What suite of management interventions currently provide the greatest benefits and efficiencies?
What scale of management interventions provide the greatest benefits and efficiencies?
What are realistic expectations of such actions ?
What if marine conditions continue to change?
What if freshwater conditions change?
What if maximum freshwater production capacity is already being achieved?
Managers will have:
The ability to optimise future restoration planning by focusing on the most effective actions.
Realistic expectations for what their interventions can achieve (scale needed, timescale for response), including uncertainties and risks.
Access to good resources to be able to discuss and appraise complex issues before committing resources.