Integrated Modelling Approaches for the Management of Marine Resources

From 2006 to 2009, the Chaloupe project, focused on analysing the interactions between global change, the dynamics of exploited marine biodiversity, and the viability of fisheries in three regional systems. An important outcome of the project was to reinforce collaboration between fisheries ecologists, economists, mathematicians and computer scientists to advance an integrated approach to marine ecosystem management. Different modelling approaches were developed to explore some of the key processes identified as driving changes in marine social-ecological systems at a regional scale. We review the progress made in the course of the project in extending the social and ecological dimensions of classic single species fisheries models to better capture these processes, and the lessons learned from the diversity of modelling approaches that were undertaken.