Discussion of "Environmental Decision-making using Bayesian Networks: Creating an environmental report card"

Non peer reviewe

Kohti kestävää pienvenesatamaa - veneilijöiden ja satamatoimijoiden näkökulmista

Involving stakeholders in the context of both business planning and environmental management is important to ensure joint understanding of prevailing or potential problems and risks, the objectives of different parties, and the best ways to attain them. This report presents a study concerning the sustainable development of small ports in the Eastern Gulf of Finland. Ten stakeholders, involving boaters and port actors, from two countries, Finland and Estonia, were interviewed to analyze how stakeholders communicate and think about the concept of sustainability and its materialization in the planning and development of small ports. The report also compares how the definition of sustainability, or thoughts concerning sustainable development, differ between boaters and port actors. Theoretically speaking, the concept of sustainable development should consist of a balance between three aspects: environment, economic and social. Following an explanation of the three-aspect concept, the interviewed stakeholders accepted the idea of sustainable development being based on these three aspects; however, the weighting of aspects varied between the interviewee groups. Although the environmental perspective was important for both boaters and port actors, boaters valued the environment more socio-ecologically than port actors, who had a more economically-oriented perspective. The interviewed boaters valued safety the highest, acknowledging many things should be improved in small ports. Port actors, instead, seemed quite unaware of the challenges boaters face regarding both safety and maintaining sewage-holding-tank pumpout stations. These differences indicate the potential need for more active communication between the two groups. The analysis concretely shows that practical management actions and investments made in small ports are typically related to more than one of the three elements of sustainability. Consequently, evaluation of various decisions’ cost-effectiveness requires holistic planning. Sustainability as an objective is incompatible with short-term thinking, requiring a longer-time perspective. Observed short contracts of port actors remarkably hindered sustainability. Interviewees mutually agreed on the high potential of small ports to bring added value both economically and socially to their surrounding areas. Thus, one important question is: who should fund the investments to develop the long-term sustainability of ports? This report consists of a description of the interviewing method and a thorough analysis of the results. The results lead from recommendations and ideas for the future development of sustainable small ports

How can stakeholders promote environmental and social responsibility in the shipping industry?

The highly globalized and competitive nature of the shipping industry poses serious governance challenges. Recently, the use of voluntary measures, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, has been explored in terms of moving towards environmentally and socially responsible as well as safe shipping industry practices. Limited attention has been paid on the role of stakeholders such as consumers, employees, NGOs, and academia in pressuring the shipping industry towards greater environmental and social responsibility. Here, by applying stakeholder theory and drawing on examples of already materialized stakeholder actions and multistakeholder initiatives, we study the potential ways that stakeholders can promote CSR in the shipping industry: we explore the resource dependencies between stakeholders, the stakeholder influence strategies, and the importance of multi-stakeholder pressure. We show that stakeholders can gain more power by using indirect strategies such as working via and/or in alliances with NGOs, trade unions, banks and financers, and/or different national or international regulatory bodies, as well as with the industry itself. Our results reveal the potential of multi-stakeholder pressure and action to promote the adoption of CSR activities, support the transparency, legitimacy, and enforcement of the practices, as well as widen the scope and focus of CSR initiatives and practices by focusing on a broad range of social and environmental issues. Finally, stakeholder pressure can push towards improved regulations. The study suggests that increased attention needs to be paid on the multi-stakeholder demands, especially considering the accentuated importance of effective maritime governance in the future.Peer reviewe

A proactive approach for maritime safety policy making for the Gulf of Finland : seeking best practices

A rapid increase in maritime traffic together with challenging navigation conditions and a vulnerable ecosystem has evoked calls for improving maritime safety in the Gulf of Finland, (the Baltic Sea). It is suggested that these improvements will be the result of adopting a regionally effective proactive approach to safety policy formulation and management. A proactive approach is grounded on a formal process of identifying, assessing and evaluating accident risks, and adjusting policies or management practices before accidents happen. Currently, maritime safety is globally regulated by internationally agreed prescriptive rules, which are usually revised in reaction to accidents. The proactive Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) is applied to risks common to a ship type or to a particular hazard, when deemed necessary, whereas regional FSA applications are rare. An extensive literature review was conducted in order to examine the opportunities for developing a framework for the GoF for handling regional risks at regional level. Best practices were sought from nuclear safety management and fisheries management, and from a particular case related to maritime risk management. A regional approach that sees maritime safety as a holistic system, and manages it by combining a scientific risk assessment with stakeholder input to identify risks and risk control options, and to evaluate risks is proposed. A regional risk governance framework can improve safety by focusing on actual regional risks, designing tailor-made safety measures to control them, enhancing a positive safety culture in the shipping industry, and by increasing trust among all involved.Peer reviewe

Best practices to improve maritime safety in the Gulf of Finland : a risk governance approach

The Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea is a vulnerable sea area with high volumes of maritime traffic and difficult navigation conditions. The reactive international rules are not anymore regarded adequate in ensuring safety in this sea area. In this paper, a regional proactive risk governance approach is suggested for improving the effectiveness of safety policy formulation and management in the Gulf of Finland, based on the risk governance framework developed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), the Formal Safety Assessment approach adopted by the International Maritime Safety Organisation (IMO), and best practices sought from other sectors and sea areas. The approach is based on a formal process of identifying, assessing and evaluating accident risks at the regional level, and adjusting policies or management practices before accidents occur. The proposed approach sees maritime safety as a holistic system, and manages it by combining a scientific risk assessment with stakeholder input to identify risks and risk control options, and to evaluate risks. A regional proactive approach can improve safety by focusing on actual risks, by designing tailor-made safety measures to control them, by enhancing a positive safety culture in the shipping industry, and by increasing trust among all involved.Non peer reviewe

Evaluating complex relationships between ecological indicators and environmental factors in the Baltic Sea : A machine learning approach

The state of marine ecosystems is increasingly evaluated using indicators. The indicator assessment results need to be understood in the context of the whole ecosystem in order to understand the key factors determining the status of these environmental components. Data available from the system’s different components are, however, often heterogeneous: they may represent different spatial and temporal scales, and different parameters can be measured with different accuracy. This makes it difficult to evaluate the relationship between these variables and status of the environment using indicators. We studied whether probabilistic, machine learning-based classifiers could provide for assessing the relationships between multiple environmental factors and ecological indicators. This paper demonstrates the use of Bayesian network classifiers (Tree-augmented Naive Bayes classifier, TAN as the specific case example), used together with structural learning from data and Entropy Minimization Discretization (IEMD) algorithm to study environment-indicator relationships within coastal fish communities in the Baltic Sea. By using two Baltic-wide indicators of coastal fish community status and a heterogeneous set of potentially influential natural and anthropogenic variables, we explore and discuss the potential of the approach. Given pre-defined cutting points for the indicators, such as the classification thresholds of the indicator, the method enables identifying relevant variables and estimating their relative importance. This information could be used in environmental management to demonstrate at which threshold value the state of an indicator is likely to respond to a pressure or a combination of pressures. In contrast to many other multivariate statistical methodologies, the presented approach can handle missing data as well as data of varying types, from fully quantitative to presence-absence, in the same analysis.peerReviewe

Dioxins in Baltic herring and salmon: an inter-sectoral decision analysis for optimal management of the problem

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) of natural resources requires recognition of the systemic intertwining of ecosystems and human society and an inter-sectoral approach. We used a Bayesian influence diagram to integrate different types of knowledge for evaluating alternative sectoral and inter-sectoral strategies to manage the dioxin problem of Baltic salmon and herring fisheries. The following strategies were evaluated: 1) decreasing dioxin and nutrient loading to the ecosystem, 2) herring and salmon fishing strategies, 3) dietary recommendations, and 4) improved information concerning the benefits of fish eating. In total nine decisions and their combinations were evaluated in the light of three alternative assessment criteria: 1) the dioxin concentrations of Baltic herring and salmon, 2) the human consumption of Baltic salmon and herring, and the associated health risks and benefits, and 3) the commercial value of herring and salmon catches. The results demonstrate the requirement to understand the effects of management measures in a holistic way: managing only one species or policy domain may not be effective, and may also have unanticipated systemic effects in the ecosystem. In general, optimal management depends to some extent on the assessment criteria used, as well as the order in which the decisions are made. Unsynchronized management decisions in different sectors may decrease each other’s effectiveness. This implies that to control the dioxin problem as effectively as possible, collaboration between the public health, environmental and fisheries sectors is needed.Non peer reviewe