Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020, together with recent publications from the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership, provides a comprehensive overview of the latest evidence on the impacts of climate change in Scotland’s marine and coastal systems. However, the evidence base is continually evolving, and this workshop will seek to bring together the latest knowledge, building upon the insights shared during the preceding day’s Marine Climate Change special session.

A next stage in the workshop will involve inviting participants to define pathways for action by government, business, and researchers to inform climate change adaptation.  Following the workshop, we aim to produce a summary document for sharing with key MASTS stakeholders, including government policy makers.

This workshop will use a role play simulation board game as an experiential learning method. Attendees will take on roles as members of government, business, NGOs or community organisations involved in the planning and management of marine space. Cast instructions will be sent in advance of the workshop.

The role play will be facilitated by environmental geographer Dr Tim Stojanovic (University of St Andrews) who has a 25 year research profile in marine planning and coastal management, and is a former chair of the MASTS MPG Forum. The scenario for this simulation has been developed using imaginary geography of a large area of ocean, bordered by two coastal nations and a shared sea (see figure below). The role play also provides a useful training exercise to develop transferrable skills in analysis, communication, negotiation and team working which are important in professional practice. The simulation also enables reflection on the challenges of implementing marine planning; managing human activities and their conflicts; and achieving cooperation, integration and sustainability. It will also hopefully be fun!

Max 20 participants

This workshop will present an open-source and user-friendly machine learning tool capable of measuring surface area and species count from images. The workshop will demonstrate the tool’s key features, such as its intuitive training process, in-built metrics calculator and model-sharing capabilities. During the workshop, attendees will be guided through the installation of the tool and gain first-hand experience in training models on a practice dataset. The workshop is open to all and no previous experience with machine learning or image analysis is needed. Please bring your laptop and charger and make sure you have your institute’s permission to download software on your laptop.

By the end of the workshop, attendees will have learned how to use RootPainter to analyse still images automatically. The workshop will also help foster new collaborations between MASTS attendees on the topic of machine learning and still image analysis.

Max 20 participants

Designing experiments that measure the response of marine organisms to multiple simultaneous environmental changes requires a good understanding of how to translate questions about biotic response to multiple drivers into a tractable research question, and then how to design and analyse an experiment that actually answers the question.

This workshop is aimed at students and early career researchers new to multiple driver experiments. It is focused on the design of manipulation (laboratory or field) experiments, though many of the concepts are applicable to observational data. Participants should express interest beforehand using the form provided. Exemplar workshops can be found at https://meddle-scor149.org/teaching-resources/. The workshop is offered by the SCOR project “Changing Oceans Biological Systems” and uses the resources in the online MEDDLE resource at https://meddle-scor149.org/

Expected Outcomes/Outputs: This practical workshop will explore defining research questions, designing multiple driver experiments, and present an overview of statistical methods for analysing multiple driver experiments. Participants will work in pairs to define and design an experiment and its analysis.

Max 12 participants

This is an initial stakeholder engagement workshop for A CREW project (2022-02: The effect of shellfish, kelp and sea grass beds on flood risk and coastal erosion in Scotland).  There is great interest in biological habitats as nature-based solutions (NbS) for coastal erosion and flood prevention.  Specifically this project looks at kelp, seagrass and saltmarsh.  However, there is a lack of focal point for exchange and consolidation of information across these habitats.  The purpose of this workshop is to engage stakeholders from local authorities, government agencies, academia and others and to provide a node for input and output of information regarding the status and effectiveness of marine habitats in coastal protection.

Expected Outcomes/Outputs:

• Listing of interested stakeholders, including suggestions of those to include not present in person
• Agreed list of focal areas for research/information gathering
• Dissemination of project progress so far and initial results of modelling exercise