November 11, 2021
NOAA’s Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) approach helped NOAA scientists overcome a lack of fisheries and ecosystem data by integrating monitoring data with simulations and models. For example, when surveys were cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, scientists estimated fish abundance with limited trawl data by combining simulated survey effort reductions, seabird diet observations with new predictive models, and predicted krill species distributions based on past survey observations. Understanding the connections of living marine resources with other ecosystem components enables NOAA to be better prepared during periods of decreased observations and helps meet new challenges in managing and conserving these resources.