Activities

The first seminar in the The Stockholm Environmental and Resource Economics (SERE) Seminar Series. Read more about the series here.

Up the Ante on Bioeconomic Submodels of Marine Foodwebs: A Data Assimilation-based Approach  - Dr. Sturla Kvamsdal, Norwegian School of Economics

Date: 28 January 2016
Venue: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Linné Hall,
Address: Lilla Frescativägen 4A, Stockholm. Click here for directions
Time: 14.00-15.00

After the seminar there will be coffee and mingle

Downlad seminar invitation

Abstract:
While economists have discussed ecosystem-based fisheries management and similar concepts, little attention has been devoted to purposeful modeling of foodwebs. Models of ecosystems or foodwebs that make economic analysis viable should capture as much as possible of system structure and dynamics while balancing biological and ecological detail against dimensionality and model complexity. Relevant models need strong, empirical content, but data availability may inhibit modeling efforts. Models are bound to be nonlinear, and model and observational uncertainty should be observed. To deal with these issues and to improve modeling of ecosystems or foodwebs for use in ecosystem-based fisheries management analysis, we suggest the data assimilation method ensemble Kalman filtering. To illustrate the method, we model the dynamics of the main, pelagic species in the Norwegian Sea. In order to reduce parameter dimensionality, the species are modeled to rely on a common carrying capacity. We also take further methodological steps to deal with a still high number of parameters. Our best model captures much of the observed dynamics in the fish stocks while the estimated model error is moderate.

Bio:
Dr. Sturla Kvamsdal earned his PhD in economics from the Norwegian School of Economics in 2010. His research mainly focuses on fisheries economics, with emphasis on ecosystem-based fisheries management, but he has worked on a range of issues in resource and environmental economics, including endangered species interaction risk, technical and productivity change, and climate policy. Kvamsdal work at SNF - Centre for Applied Research at NHH and is currently leading the EINSAM-project (Ecosystem-Economic Interactions in the Norwegian Sea: Analysis and Management) that is financed by the Research Council of Norway. He is also affiliated with the Center for Environmental Economics at the University of California, San Diego.

Contacts:
Chandra Kiran Krishnamurthy, Beijer Institute, Seminar series organiser
Agneta Sundin, GEDB/Beijer Institute, Communication officer