About
STORMY WATERS is a three-year research project funded through a grant from Naturvårdsverket, Havs- och Vattenmyndigheten and FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development.
Aims
The project aims to support adaptive and legitimate management from a systems perspective contributing to ecosystem-based aquatic management and providing support for the practical management of the grey seals and the great cormorant in the Swedish Baltic Coast.
The project focuses on conflicts surrounding the management of aquatic ecosystems, specifically the conflict between the conservation of seal and cormorant populations and the fishing industry, which is understood here as a conflict intertwined with other issues at different geographical scales. We study the partially overlapping patterns of collaboration and conflicts that characterize the relationships between key stakeholders involved in the management and/or utilization of aquatic ecosystems at the national level in Sweden and in three case study areas.
In summary, the project aims to:
- examine whether and how divergent opinions and perspectives among key stakeholders affect existing collaboration networks;
- identify how patterns of conflicts and collaboration in stakeholder networks impact the status of aquatic ecosystems;
- study how possible future changes, such as changes in food chains or legislation, affect the dynamics of conflict and cooperation in management networks for aquatic ecosystems;
- evaluate different methods of participatory processes based on their ability to advance management processes despite, or because of, disagreement.
Methods
We do this through a combination of research methods, such as:
- document analysis, including documents from a diverse range of public agencies from the local to the international level and documents from non-governmental organisations and other interest associations;
- interviews and their analysis through thematic and network-inspired analysis; workshops and their analysis through thematic and affect analysis (i.e. analysis sensitive to how emotions are expressed) and historic analysis of databases on diverse ecosystem and biological components and cycles.
This research will improve knowledge of interconnected socio-economic and ecological conflicts of interest, as well as develop tools for creating long-term sustainable and effective participatory methods for managing aquatic ecosystems.
