Putting on a bow-tie to sort out who does what and why in the complex arena of marine policy and management

Marine policy and management has to cope with a plethora of human activities that cause pressures leading to changes to the natural and human systems. Accordingly, it requires many policy and management responses to address traditional, cultural, social, ecological, technical, and economic policy objectives. Because of this, we advocate that a fully-structured approach using the IEC/ISO 31010 Bow-tie analysis will allow all elements to be integrated for a cost-effective system. This industry-standard system, described here with examples for the marine environment, will fulfil many of the demands by the users and uses of the marine system and the regulators of those users and uses. It allows for bridging several aspects: the management and environmental sciences, the management complexity and governance demands, the natural and social sciences and socio-economics and outcomes. Most importantly, the use of the Bow-tie approach bridges systems analysis and ecosystem complexity. At a time when scientific decisions in policy making and implementation are under question, we conclude that it provides a rigorous, transparent and defendable system of decision-making.