Actions to Impacts
In 2017 the Commission and its Science Advisory Committee began a project to improve our ability to evaluate and quantify the effectiveness of our actions taken, known as the Net Ecosystem Improvement project. In 2018, the title was changed to Actions to Impacts, to more clearly reflect the goal of the project.
This effort is important to our work, as it will provide a perspective of how our actions impact the broader ecosystem, provide evidence of success, and a method to address our mission of improving ecosystem health.
Our next steps are to develop or locate simple conceptual models that illustrate the connection between recovery and protection actions and effects on ecosystem elements and functions, and then compile available data, or conduct a study, to provide quantitative data on the elements and/or functions shown in the conceptual model. For example, the density of Dungeness crab in eelgrass meadows, and then apply these data to the Net Ecosystem Improvement model (NEI = change in function x area x probability) to calculate the change in function (e.g. crab density) per unit area times the area protected or restored.
Check back on this page for more information as the project moves forward.