Role of risk assessment in fish health policy and management

Fish health management occurs in a complex ecological and socio-economic sy stem, in an uncertain and uncontrollable environment, and with a luck of em pirical data. Increasingly, regional. national. and international policies require some form of risk assessment to help make reasonable decisions. Des pite its increasing use and popularity there are many criticisms of risk as sessment as a basis for fish health management decisions. Underlying these criticisms are three common elements: (1) unrealistic expectations: of the ability of risk assessments to identify the "right" decision: (2) inadequat e predictive ability of fish health risk assessment models; and (3) the lac k of integration or consideration of management, societal, and scientific c oncerns. Rather than abandoning risk assessment as a basis for management b ecause of its quantitative limitations, the concept should be fully explore d and applied in order to facilitate socially and ecologically relevant fis h health management decisions. Moreover, efforts should be undertaken to ed ucate managers and stakeholders as to the role of risk assessment in decisi on support and in exploring additional models for describing and assessing the impacts of fish health management decisions. (C) 2001 International Cou ncil for the Exploration of the Sea.