Tools under development
March 22 2017
The CCRES project is developing innovative tools that demonstrate the link between healthy coral reef, seagrass and mangrove ecosystems, and community welfare. These tools will assist coastal managers and planners to strengthen implementation of ecosystem management plans.
SCIENCE & DISCOVERY
Valuing ecosystems
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|
| 1. | Food web model | This model accounts for the influence of coral reef structure and health on the dynamics of a coastal community. It will assist coastal managers from government and community agencies to estimate the value of coral reef fisheries and their potential to change over time. |
| 2. | Coral reef trajectory model | This is a tool to predict the response of coral reefs to a variety of stressors including typhoons, coral bleaching, pollution and overfishing. Users will enter the state of their reef and create management scenarios, and then explore the probable reef response. |
| 3. | Coastal protection | A web-based tool to illustrate what is likely to happen to the shoreline behind a reef when various factors in the environment change. Users of the tool will be able to easily and rapidly estimate the effectiveness of local reefs as a defence against waves and storm surges, without the need to understand complex models or access engineering expertise. |
| 4. | Bio-LEWIE | This model is a pairing of a bio-economic model and a Local Economy-Wide Impact Evaluation (LEWIE) model. It can be used to examine a variety of questions related to the interactions between economic growth and coastal resources. Model results will be used to develop scenarios for the pilot sites, as well as an advisory paper. |
| 5. | Seagrass and human health | The Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-Offs model values the filtration service of seagrass meadows and mangroves. This tool helps to determine the past and projects future impacts of habitat loss by using various levels of conservation and climate scenarios. It is designed to identify local entrepreneurs and develop a deeper understanding of enterprise level solutions possible at both pilot locations. |
| 6. | Reef React | This is a Baysian Belief Network of coral reef dynamics that helps users predict reef responses to different management and climate change options. |
Designing marine reserves
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|
| 7. | Policy guidelines for designating fisheries replenishment areas | A policy tool to identify appropriate reserve coverage to rebuild fisheries. CCRES has found that a 10% no-take can help rebuild reef fisheries but that 20-30% offers greater benefits without impacting overall profitability of the fishery. |
| 8. | MPA design tool | This is a practical tool to implement and design marine reserves for rebuilding fisheries and/or preserving biodiversity, integrating data on the connectivity of fish larvae among reefs. This software tool works with a Geographic Information System and allows users to integrate multiple datasets and identify appropriate locations for reserves to meet a variety of possible objectives. It is an extension to Marxan, decision support software used globally for conservation planning. |
| 9. | Marine reserve sizing tool | An interactive tool that assists with estimating the optimum size of reserves to meet management objectives such as protecting biodiversity and fisheries species. |
| 10. | FishSPACE | This is a spatially explicit fish population and fishing model that can be used to guide MPA network designs and marine spatial plans by demonstrating potential fisheries productivity, given varying levels of habitat quality, protection and fishing pressure. |
SYSTEMS & BUSINESS
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|
| 11. | SESAMME | SESAMME is a mapping tool, available as an iPad app, which enables researchers and stakeholders to build interactive pictures of socio-ecological systems. It is designed to capture information about system components (resources, activities, pressures, decisions) from local communities and help them visualise how these components interact. CCRES is using SESAMME to understand specific socio-ecological problems of fish catch decline, mangrove loss, water pollution and food insecurity in the East Asia-Pacific region. |
| 12. | Systems simulation models | Simulation models that quantify interactions between socio-economic systems and ecosystems. They can be used to explain to decision-makers how the interactions within systems affect system behaviour. It can also be used by decision-makers to run scenarios and explain how these affect the trajectory and behaviour of the system over time. |
| 13. | SYSTORY interface | A simulation and storytelling tool that helps managers to understand and visualise the dynamics of socioecological problems and assess the influence of alternative scenarios on system trajectories over time. |
| 14. | Business development model | Enabling business and non-business professionals to better evaluate value chains, pricing, competitive dynamics, and profitability; and, to assess how changes to existing businesses and/or investments in new business concepts in a given industry or sector can better align local economic activity with long-term marine ecosystem health and value. |
| 15. | Tourbillon business tool (includes Eco-Biz Challenge) | A framework to improve commercial outcomes for ideas. It includes the Eco-Biz Challenge - a competition designed to identify local entrepreneurs and develop a deeper understanding of enterprise level solutions to environmental issues which are possible at both pilot sites. |
PEOPLE & ENGAGEMENT
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| 16. | CCRESCHANGE/ Household intervention | This tool is a community-based behaviour change guide, comprising a training course and workbook, for use by practitioners who seek to foster sustainable behaviours in parents and children living in coastal households in Indonesia. |
| 17. | Coastal adaptation toolkit | This is a diagnostic and planning toolkit, consisting of a set of linked frameworks, principles and strategies, designed to assist governments, communities and NGOs to foster sustainable marine resource use and livelihoods, across multiple levels of formal and customary governance. |
