Economic dimensions have been somewhat neglected in research on nature policy and management of marine ecosystem exploitation. The current book aims to ?ll this gap. It examines the mismatches of natural, socio-economic, and regulatory processes and regimes in time and space. This involves dealing with the complexity and uncertainty that are inherent to the interaction of marine ecosystems and economic systems. The approach adopted is based on the idea that the design of sustainability policies requires an integration of insights from resource, environmental, and ecological economics on theonehandandmarinebiologyandenvironmentalsciencesontheotherhand.Forthis purpose, use is made of integrated assessment on the basis of theoretical and applied mathematical models. The book is the result of a large project, hosted by the Department of Spatial E- nomics of the Free University in Amsterdam, under the supervision of the ?rst author. TheprojectreceivedfundingfromtheNetherlandsOrganisationforScienti?cResearch (NWO), through a “priority program”titled“SustainableUseandConservationof- rine Living Resources,” which was initiated and coordinated by Prof. Wim Wolff of the University of Groningen. The work reported here has greatly bene?ted from external advice given by marine biologists who participated in this research program.
