Implications of Protected Areas to Optimal Management of Marine Resources

Abstract

The thesis explores how the introduction of a marine protected area influences the optimal management of a marine resource, i.e. fish stock. Logistic growth functions are applied to a deterministic model with a migration term which is proportional to the difference in density in the two areas. A nonlinear profit function is adopted. The possibility and behavior of an optimal steady state equilibrium is investigated for different parameter values. An optimal feedback policy is computed using dynamic programming. The development of the optimally managed system through time is analyzed. The results indicate that protected areas decrease annual catches and revenues and increase the total standing stock. Several interesting effects of different parameters are revealed and discussed.