Data_Sheet_1_Consistent Risk Management in a Changing World: Risk Equivalence in Fisheries and Other Human Activities Affecting Marine Resources and Ecosystems.pdf

A changing climate makes the evaluation of human impacts on natural systems increasingly uncertain and affects the risk associated with management decisions. This influences both the achievability and meaning of marine conservation and resource management objectives. A risk-based framework that includes a risk equivalence approach in the evaluation of the potential consequences from human activity, can be a powerful tool for timely and consistent handling of environmental considerations in management advice. Risk equivalence permits a formal treatment of all sources of uncertainty, such that objectives-based management decisions can be maintained within acceptable risk levels and deliver outcomes consistent with expectations. There are two pathways to risk equivalence that can be used to account for the short-term and longer-term impacts of a changing environment: adjusting the degree of exposure to human pressure and adjusting the reference levels used to measure the risk. The first uses existing data and knowledge to derive risk conditioning factors applied to condition management advice on environmental departures from baseline conditions. The second is used to formalise the review and update of management objectives, reference levels and risk tolerances, so they remain consistent with potential consequences from human activity under new biological, ecological and socio-economic realities. A risk equivalence approach is about adapting existing practice to frame environmental considerations within objectives-based risk frameworks, systematically exploring alternative scenarios and assumptions, and conditioning management advice on environmental status. It is applicable to the management of all human activities impacting biological and ecological systems. Concepts of risk, risk conditioning factors, and incremental changes in risk, provide a common currency for the inclusion and communication of environmental effects into advice. Risk equivalence can ensure timely delivery of robust management advice accounting for demonstrated, anticipated or projected environmental effects. This can guide management decisions in a changing world, and greatly facilitate the implementation of an ecosystem approach for the management of human activities.气候变化使得人类对自然系统影响的评估愈发充满不确定性，同时也会影响管理决策相关的风险水平。这会同时影响海洋保护与资源管理目标的可实现性及其内涵。一种在人类活动潜在后果评估中纳入风险等效（risk equivalence）方法的基于风险的框架，能够成为在管理建议中及时、连贯地纳入环境考量的有力工具。风险等效方法可对所有不确定性来源进行规范化处理，使得基于目标的管理决策能够维持在可接受的风险水平之内，并取得与预期相符的实施结果。风险等效存在两种实现路径，可用于应对气候变化带来的短期与长期影响：一是调整人类活动压力的暴露程度，二是调整用于衡量风险的参考基准。第一种路径利用现有数据与知识推导风险调整因子（risk conditioning factors），用于基于环境偏离基线条件的情况对管理建议进行修正。第二种路径则用于实现管理目标、参考基准与风险容忍度的规范化审查与更新，使其在新的生物、生态及社会经济现实背景下，仍能与人类活动的潜在影响保持一致。风险等效方法旨在对现有实践进行适配，将环境考量纳入基于目标的风险框架之中，系统地探索各类备选情景与假设条件，并基于环境现状对管理建议进行修正。该方法适用于所有对生物与生态系统造成影响的人类活动的管理。风险、风险调整因子以及风险增量的相关概念，为将环境影响纳入管理建议并进行沟通提供了统一的衡量标准。风险等效方法能够确保及时提供稳健的管理建议，充分考量已证实、预期或预测的环境影响。这能够在不断变化的世界中为管理决策提供指引，并极大推动人类活动管理的生态系统方法的实施。