Place-based decision making : the use of GIS by local governance groups to support salmon conservation and management on the West Coast of Vancouver Island

This project was developed in collaboration with West Coast Aquatic (WCA) and stakeholders of the seven Salmon Roundtables (SRTs), currently engaged in fisheries co-management on the West Coast Vancouver Island (WCVI). The Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), has revised its Wild Salmon Policy (WSP) to focus on increasing collaboration, identifying environmental indicators, and developing science-based tools, to support the recovery of salmon along the coast. With the SRTs having committed to the rebuilding of wild chinook populations, there is an opportunity for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to aid in them. Presently, the Marine Ecosystem Reference Guide (MERG), stands as an open source web portal tailored to the unique geographic region of the WCVI. With a consensus among stakeholders that GIS can enhance decision-making, there is an eagerness to integrate it into their participatory processes. Therefore, in support of WCA’s desire to see the adoption of MERG by the SRTs this research took a two-part approach to explore how GIS can support place-based decision-making. First, a review of the current use of GIS-based decision support tools (DSTs) applied to salmon management was done to understand their role and the applicability of MERG. With research having shown that the adoption of these tools are limited both by resource and capacity barriers and that their uptake is contingent on the perceived level of useability and satisfaction of each user, this research engaged in structured interviews to directly incorporate evidence from SRT participants, regarding these barriers and how to improve distributed data platforms. This information was used to guide recommendations for enhancing MERG’s data repository and identifying ways its’ use could overcome these challenges. Having addressed data access, the second half of this research, looked at data application. In the absence of data, theoretical modeling has been shown to be applicable for the identification of key environmental indicators, such as critical habitat. With its identification considered vital to restoring and protecting salmon along the WCVI, the second half of this research investigated the spatial modeling capacity of GIS, to identify suitable habitat for key Indicator Species (IS), known to provide critical nearshore habitat and food for juvenile chinook. Overall, the results of this research found that the approachability of web-GIS, such as MERG, are able to remove barriers to the use of GIS, aid with the identification of critical salmon habitats, and provide a common approach for salmon-recovery stakeholders to realize their shared goals of preserving and rebuilding at risk wild salmon stocks.West Coast Aquati