Hello all,
I’m still on a quest to try and make sense of this all.
Bigbadblair – I did receive a response to my email to the bio’s regarding the presentation on the proposed closures. Specifically, I asked about the mortality rate of 20% equating to a FSI score of 0.8 when water temperature was 13 degrees or 4.2. 4.2 x 20% was shown as 0.8.
The reply I received stated “The example I used during the presentation was conceptual – my goal was for folks to understand how cumulative effects of threats can mean we have to address certain elements (habitat and angling, or habitat and non-native species) simultaneously.” The response further went on to further discuss the mortality rate of a species.
However, I have also received a copy of “A Generic Rule Set for Applying the Alberta Fish Sustainability Index, Second Edition”. Within the index, there are actually 17 metrics that are fed scores to determine the overall FSI score. The response I received did talk about “Dose response curves” which are the expected relationships between varying metrics upon one another. Most of the response was, in my opinion, conceptual again.
For those of you interested, I am attaching below, the actual 17 metrics used to calculate the FSI score. What you’ll see is each metric listed and the associated data used in the model as to whether it was classified as quantitative or qualitative data. The table lists 5 of 17 metrics used based on quantitative data. That means 10 of 17 metrics are qualitative – or 59%.
The gov’t also posted a secondary document entitled “Limitations and Caveats of Alberta’s Fish Sustainability Index (FSI). Within this document, one of the caveats states “FSI ranks are relatively straightforward to assign and biologists conducting FSI assessments strive to be as quantitative as possible. However, when there is a lack of information, metrics were often ranked qualitatively and should therefore be considered largely subjective.”
I am still left wondering what the cumulative effect is on using 10 out of 17 subjective inputs has on the output, or FSI score assigned to each watershed.
I’m still scratching my head……
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