Free Press reports on computer model project to aid lobster industry
The Free Press reported on a project by the Maine Sea Grant College Program and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension that aims to help lobstermen. The three-year project, “Planning for a Changing Climate: A Participatory Approach to Fishing Community Adaptation,” has drawn on the observations of South Thomaston lobstermen to devise a computer model to help lobstermen cope with a warmer Gulf of Maine, according to the article. The purpose of the computer model is to show how the warming temperature in the Gulf and the time of lobstering can affect yearly profits, the article states. “Economic reliance on the lobster fishery means that coastal communities are particularly sensitive to changes in the marine environment that affect the lobster populations,” said project leader Esperanza Stancioff, who is a climate change educator with UMaine Extension and Maine Sea Grant. Sam Belknap, a graduate student and National Science Foundation Fellow at UMaine’s Climate Change Institute, helped create the system dynamics computer model. “Models are excellent at capturing the complex feedback that define systems where economics and ecology intersect. The lobster fishery is a prime example. Water temperature, fishing effort, lobster supply and demand for the product all play an important part. More importantly, changes in any one of these things can affect the others. That’s where system dynamics comes into play,” he said.