Visualization for the management of renewable resources in an uncertain environment

The management of renewable resources such as commercial and recreational fisheries can be difficult due to lack of data, environmental uncertainty, and a multitude of species interactions. It is noted that electronic visualization is essential for interpreting the multidimensional supercomputer results. Furthermore, visualization can show the resource manager how changes in management policy can affect the overall economic performance of the fishery, as well as how sensitive the performance results are to variations in the poorly known data parameters. An implementation of a `world within a world´ vision concept permits visualization of a 3-D solution surface in an inner world, which can be changed along with a corresponding change of the parameters of a 3-D outer world. This implementation allows the resource manager to visualize multidimensional resources along with parameter sensitivity of the optimal value and optimal control. The research discussed pertains to the Lake Michigan fishery