Johnson Lab: Applied Social Science

Aquaculture in Shared Waters - Ongoing

Since 2013, Dr. Johnson and her team has conducted research in collaboration with the Aquaculture in Shared Waters program, originally funded by the National Sea Grant Program. Project partners include Maine Sea Grant, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Maine Aquaculture Association, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, and Coastal Enterprises Inc.,  and the University of Maine. It is currently a key activity of the Maine Aquaculture Hub. 

This project provides aquaculture training to fishermen and other fishing community members. The Johnson Lab has been conducting social science research to understand the attitudes, perceptions and knowledge of fishermen with respect to adding aquaculture to their fishing operations. Related areas of research focus on the adoption of aquaculture by commercial fishers and factors influencing social carrying capacity. 

Dr. Johnson’s ongoing social science research is currently funded by the National Sea Grant-funded Maine Aquaculture Hub.  Stay Tuned! 

Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture - SEANET

The Johnson lab contributed to the NSF EPSCoR-funded Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANET). 

This multidisciplinary project adopted a sustainability science approach to help inform decision-making related to aquaculture in Maine.

Dr. Johnson co-led the Human Dimensions research team that studied the social and economic dimensions of aquaculture in Maine and led the development of a Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework that can be used to guide interdisciplinary research on marine aquaculture. 

Johnson, T.R. (2020). Reflecting on Maine’s Changing Productive Coastal Region. Maine Policy Review, 29(2):91-97.

Johnson, T.R., Beard, K., Brady, D.C., Byron, C.J., Cleaver, C., Duffy, K., Keeney, N., Kimble, M., Miller, M., Moeykens, S., Teisl, M., van Walsum, G.P., & Yuan, J. (2019). A social-ecological system framework for marine aquaculture research. Sustainability, 11, 2522; doi:10.3390/su11092522

Johnson, T.R. & Hanes, S.P. (2019). Considering social carrying capacity in the context of sustainable ecological aquaculture. In J.E. and C.P. Heidkamp (eds.), Towards Coastal Resilience and Sustainability, Routledge.

Johnson, T.R., and Hanes, S.P. (2018). Marine Aquaculture in Restructuring Regions: Understanding a Key Coastal Sustainability Transition. Regions Magazine, 308.

Cleaver, C., Johnson, T.R., Hanes, S.P., & Pianka, K. (2018). From fishers to farmers: Assessing aquaculture adoption in a training program for commercial fishers. Bulletin of Marine Science, 94(3):1215-1222.

Bricknell, I.R., Birkel, S.D., Brawley, S.H., Van Kirk, T., Hamlin, H., Capistrant-Fossa, K., Huguenard, K., Van Walsum, G., Liu, Z.L., Zhu, L. H., Grebe, G., Taccardi, E., Miller, M., Preziosi, B.M., Duffy, K., Byron, C.J., Quigley, C.T.C., Bowden T.J., Brady, D., Sappati, P.K., Johnson, T.R., Beal, B.F., Moeykens, S. Resilience of cold water aquaculture: A review of likely scenarios as climate changes in the Gulf of Maine. Reviews in Aquaculture. https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.12483