Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS)

The Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS) aims to develop the Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) capacity in the Northwest Atlantic region to support ecosystem approaches to science and management. IEAs are an iterative process that incorporate all aspects of an ecosystem, including humans, during the decision-making process to better ad-dress trade-offs within and between sectors. The working group has developed a process for assessing and communicating indicators that has been incorporated into the State of the Ecosys-tem reports produced annually in the United States. The same suite of indicators have been used in an ecological risk assessment of the Mid-Atlantic Bight for the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Manage-ment Council. The working group continues to develop alternative models that represent the marine ecology and human systems at multiple scales. The working group’s annual meeting highlighted the work that has been accomplished through an open-science symposium that ad-dressed the usefulness of the IEA approach as well as what needs to be done to move forward with an ecosystem approach to management. In the coming years, the working group will con-tinue to focus on developing the capacity for IEAs within the United States and Canada. Em-phasis will be placed on utilizing the advantages of open science principles to gain efficiency in product development as management requests are often faster than scientific processes. The working group will continue to emphasize the value of incorporating human dimensions and improving communication. The main goal will be to expand the scope of IEAs beyond fisheries and include another sector such as wind energy.