Research projects

Project CEMAPRE internal

TitleSustainable Management of Fisheries with Stochastic Differential Equations: Optimisation, Estimation and Prediction
ParticipantsNuno Brites (Principal Investigator)
SummaryThe dynamics of some biological phenomena are frequently modelled using ordinary differential
equations. However, quite often random environmental fluctuations do affect the dynamics of these
phenomena in a significant way and, besides causing considerable deviations from the mean dynamics,
may also produce new qualitative features. Incorporating the effect of random environmental
fluctuation leads to stochastic differential equation models (SDEM). SDEM have been applied to the
growth dynamics of harvested populations living in a randomly varying environment, with the purpose
of obtaining optimal fishing policies. This research plan will raise up new theoretical problems in
the stochastic theory of fishing models and of stochastic optimisation, as well as new estimation
and prediction issues. Concerning the application of knowledge, it is expected to have a huge impact
in the design of harvesting policies in order to help improve sustainability of the fisheries, to
reduce the fish stock evaluation costs, to reduce the social and economic burdens of more
traditional policies, and to improve the efficiency of the fishing activity.