The consortium has extensive knowledge and expertise in the governance (i.e. the policies, politics, administration and legislation) of coasts, estuaries and marine areas. This is especially for the UK and at the European level but we have also worked on selected areas worldwide. The Associates also have particular expertise relating to ecosystem services and societal goods and benefits and the way in which these are used in the management of the systems.
Through many projects and publications, we have developed and applied a set of management approaches and tools including:
- The 10-tenets of adaptive management and sustainability and the use of the DAPSI(W)R(M) problem structuring framework
- The TIDE Toolbox for estuarine planning and management and the SPIDA software for managing the decommissioning of offshore structures
- A methodology for prioritising anthropogenic pressures on benthic habitats in UK marine regions
- An Estuarine Planning Support System (EPSS) which integrates current legislation tools and concepts for application in the Humber Estuary
- Policy and governance mapping (using ‘horrendograms’) to assist understanding of complex systems
- A systems analysis approach to marine management incorporating 14 subsystems
The Associates have particular expertise in the application of concepts and analyses relating to ecosystem services and societal goods and benefits and the way in which these relate to the management of the systems. We particularly emphasise the continuum from ecological structure and functioning, through ecosystem services to societal goods and benefits as a basis for managing estuaries, coasts and seas to ensure benefits for nature and society. In particular we have developed the matrix approach for assessing the pressures relating to activities and the way these affect habitats and species.