Goals

• Collect and integrate social science information into a geographic modeling framework developed by the USGS that can support effective CMSP.
• Contribute to comprehensive spatial planning in the coastal and marine environments.
• Determine how social perceptions, knowledge, and values of ecosystem services drive individual and collective decisions and actions that affect coastal economies and resiliency.
• Map the social values attributed to ecosystem services by important stakeholder subgroups, differentiated according to their attitudes about human uses of coastal regions.

Guiding principles

1. Address management needs by developing a set of simple informative tools for collecting and evaluating the social values of ecosystem services.
2. Encourage its use by explicitly linking data collection, analysis, and outcomes to management needs and actions in coastal ecosystems.