Addressing Challenges in Defining Fishing Communities Using Quantitative Models

In the U.S., federal fisheries managers are required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, as well as other federal laws, to assess and understand the nature of potential social impacts of management actions on fishing communities. In relation to this requirement, there has been much debate recently on how a fishing community should be defined. In some regions of the U.S., entire islands have been designated as fishing communities, whereas other regions have defined fishing communities as more like a town or a village.  As the debate over how a fishing community is defined continues, a similar debate is in progress over which fishing communities are more engaged in or dependent on fishing than others. This paper attempts to tackle both of these debates by discussing a quantitative model for ranking fisheries involvement by communities and describes the challenges and opportunities we were presented with in applying this model to the Alaskan communities participating in the North Pacific fisheries, including commercial, recreational and subsistence fishing. We review data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a non-parametric, multidimensional modeling method that was first used in evaluating and ranking fishing communities with regards to their engagement in and dependence on the North Pacific and West Coast fisheries. A critique of the DEA model in that study is reviewed. In addition, we present the method and results from application of a DEA model to Alaskan fishing communities with modifications to the indicators chosen and the model’s assumptions. In addition, we review our experiences from running the DEA model in this context and discuss the strengths and weaknesses that we see in characterizing fishing communities with it.