Incorporating stakeholders' knowledge to stock assessment: how?
Samu Mäntyniemi, Päivi Haapasaari, Sakari Kuikka · Figshare · 2009
No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.In this paper we present a method by which the knowledge of stakeholders can be taken into account in stock assessment. The approach consists of a structured interview process followed by quantitative modelling of the answers. The outcome is a set of probability models, each describing the views of different stakeholder. Graphical representations of the models can be used to explore and communicate the differences and similarities between the views of stakeholders. Individual models are then merged to a large model by using the techniques of Bayesian model averaging, and this model is conditioned on stock assessment data. As result, the model can be used to give management advice where the views of interviewed stakeholders have been taken into account with a weight determined based on how well the views are supported by the observed data. The individual stakeholder models can also be analysed separately to see whether the different views imply different advice or not.