Joint Webinar Series: Topics at the nexus of climate change, fisheries, and blue foods

Presentation 2: North Pacific Ocean Knowledge Network: Connecting Ocean Science to Support Informed Decision-Making

The North Pacific Ocean is undergoing rapid and measurable change. Warming ocean temperatures, shifting species distributions, intensifying marine heatwaves, and altered productivity regimes are challenging the ability of fisheries managers and researchers to keep pace with a dynamic system. While a wealth of relevant science, data, and management tools exists across the region, this information is fragmented across institutions, jurisdictions, and disciplines, making it difficult to access, compare, and apply at the scale transboundary decisions require.

The North Pacific Ocean Knowledge Network, developed through the Basin-scale Events and Coastal Impacts (BECI) project, is designed to address this gap. The network will build the infrastructure to link, collate, organize, and synthesize existing information, from ocean state indicators and ecosystem health assessments to species distribution data, ecological models, and management tools, into a single, accessible platform. Planned as a hybrid system combining federated discovery with strategic synthesis, the network will respect data sovereignty while reducing the time and effort required to find and use critical information.

The network is designed to serve a broad community: international, national, and regional fisheries managers and policy analysts integrating environmental change into planning and decision-making; researchers investigating links between environmental change and fish population dynamics; and Indigenous and coastal communities engaged in monitoring and stewardship. By making the connections between basin- and regional-scale environmental drivers and their coastal fisheries impacts more visible and accessible, the Knowledge Network aims to strengthen the scientific foundation for resilient management across the North Pacific.