In pbs-assess/PACea: An R package of Pacific ecosystem information to help facilitate an ecosystem approach to fisheries management

Introduction

Motivation

• Revised Fisheries Act: “... the Minister shall take into account the environmental conditions affecting a fish stock."

• r colorize("Yet <50\\% of DFO’s stock assessments use environmental data", "blue")

• Only 28% in Pacific Region

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• r colorize("Leading cause of not using environmental data is availability of the data:", "red")
• r colorize("where") to find it
• r colorize("wrangling") it (e.g netCDF into R)
• r colorize("understanding") it

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• Open Data is great, but have to convert raw data into r colorize("usable information", "red")

Why an R package?

• R is the computer programming language most widely used by DFO stock assessment scientists (the primary audience).

• An R package is the standard way to share code (and data).

• Easy installation:

\textcolor{red}{\texttt{remotes::install_github("pbs-assess/pacea")}}

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• Ensures proper documentation of data objects and functions.

• Vignettes that walk users through various features, r colorize("already rendered on GitHub", color = "blue").

• Custom plotting files, fully open source.

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• All data (except oceanographic model output) is saved within the package
• no further downloading required
• not relying on external websites being functional.

pbs-assess/PACea documentation built on April 17, 2025, 11:36 p.m.