Systems Monitoring and Assessment

Our aquatic environments are facing multifaceted problems as the Anthropocene puts pressure on ecosystems and alters nature's contributions to humanity. We need to understand how multiple, interacting pressures impact on environmental systems and how the environment is connected to human desires, needs, behaviours and the structure and functioning of society. In this theme we explore how systems thinking and systems methodologies can help tackle the grand aquatic challenges of our times, focussing on the role of monitoring and assessment in providing the evidence base for advice and management decisions.

Systems, here, are a set of interconnecting components and their emergent properties. This can range from individual environmental, social, economic, technical, legal or political systems up to the ‘whole system’. The theme touches on the four Cefas Science, Evidence and Advice outcomes, taking a broad view on how an improved environment and healthy people/society can be achieved within the context of our needs for food and energy.

Research within the theme includes environmental/economic/social sustainability, social-ecological systems and the connectivity between what happens on land and our lake, river, coastal and offshore systems. We explore what is needed for integrated monitoring of aquatic systems and we look at emerging techniques and technologies with the potential to contribute to a big-picture approach. This is a new theme for the 2025 Science, Evidence and Advice Strategy and the theme will take shape over the first years of the SEAS.

To achieve this, we:

• Collectively determine what the systems approach looks like for Cefas science so that everyone sees how their work contributes to it.

• Sharpen our skills and expertise in systems methodologies and apply these to complex aquatic sustainability challenges.

• Review our monitoring programmes to identify opportunities for greater scientific integration.