Caution— Inclusion of fishing effort in this decision support database is intended for proof of concept only. This information was developed during the Pacific coast Essential Fish Habitat process and was not accepted as credible after its development was complete. Recognizing this, we have included it in this case study only to demonstrate the significant influence that fishing effort has on site selection in offshore environments.

Human uses and threats are factors that can affect the suitability of an area towards meeting both conservation and fishery objectives.

In gathering information on the distribution of targets and prioritizing potential conservation areas, we attempt to ensure that only populations of species and examples of ecosystems are captured that are likely to persist into the future. There are many data gaps for viability analyses of marine targets and therefore threat and human use data often serve to screen or filter out areas that are not likely to have the best or most viable examples of species and ecosystems. These are called cost factors in Marxan.

This case study works from a definition of a threat as "any human activity or process that has caused, is causing or may cause significant destruction, degradation and/or impairment of biodiversity and natural processes." A threat may represent a specific condition, trend, or seasonal variation in the environment that impacts a species, habitat, or ecosystem's ability to persist over time at a particular location. Threats here refer to current impacts in the environment that can be mapped.

Some of the main threats to marine diversity and fishery production considered in these case studies were land use designation (urban coastal development, agriculture, logging), road density, shoreline armoring (seawalls, jetties), invasive species, and aquaculture. These threats were assessed in each planning unit and the scores for all threats were combined in to a suitability index or score for each unit.

Incorporating fishing effort
The Essential Fish Habitat and Pacific Fishery Management Council process have produced a model of fishing effort along the outer coasts of Oregon and Washington. Commercial fishing effort was derived from a dataset that was originally created in response to management measures, specifically the reduction of capacity within the West Coast Groundfish fleet. The modeled outputs were based on fishery-dependent data using landings (also known as receipts or "fish tickets"), revenues, and vessel characteristics, collected by Washington, Oregon and California, and stored in the Pacific Fisheries Information Network of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. This model was developed using an iterative algorithm programmed in a GIS, which successively constrained each "fish ticket" and subsequently apportioned catch to equal area units (9-kilometer by 9-kilometer blocks) based on the probability of fishing activity occurring in an area. Based on 1997 and 2000 landings, the modeled outputs used in this analysis capture the fishing effort associated with both the trawl and fixed gear sectors within the groundfish fleet. There is recognition that these data do not adequately capture existing conditions along the outer coast; use of these data in the case study is for research purposes only.