Tracking Mobile Marine Species: Spatial Data, Visualization, and the Science-Policy Interface

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

This research project will examine how scientific studies that yield spatiotemporal data and visual representations of mobile species shape policy debates about control over highly migratory ocean resources and property. The project will provide new insights regarding the connections among the production, visualization, and interpretation of tracking data and their subsequent interpretation in science-policy relations. The interdisciplinary team of investigators will integrate the research areas of mobile marine resources and the control relations governing them to address questions dealing with resource control in the oceans. Project findings will provide new perspectives to resource managers and policy makers about the geographic range of transboundary marine resources and information to facilitate the development and implementation of meaningful conservation measures. Building on their extensive collective experience in advising governments, international, and regional and local organizations about the scientific and policy aspects of ocean management, the investigators will develop and disseminate study findings in academic and policy circles as well as to conservation and industry stakeholders engaged in marine resource management. By studying the origins, products, and uses of tracking projects, this research project will link the relationship between science and policy to scholarship on resource control. The investigators will focus on four sets of core questions: (1) How do scientific representations of tagging data inform management debate and practice? (2) How have tagging data influenced the ways resource claims are made and assigned by and among nation-states, and how do interpretations of tagging data influence policy? (3) How do scientists determine the ways they visually represent their data to stakeholders? (4) How have policy and management needs influenced the research questions, species and study areas on which tagging studies are initiated? The investigators will analyze seminal studies, and they will employ an information cycle analysis, survey tools, meeting observations, and structured and semi-structured interviews to explore the intersections between representations of mobile marine resources and the policy-building processes to control or claim them at multiple governance levels. Data will be analyzed through transcription, coding, and the use of quantitative and qualitative survey and textual analysis software. Project findings will provide new perspectives regarding how science-policy relationships intersect with questions of resource-control decision making involving local, regional, and global stakeholders.