Integrated assessment of fishery systems

EEP research has addressed sustainability and management options in the Barents Sea adjacent to Norway and Russia [1] [2], and the coastal seas of China [3]. EEP is also developing general tools and approaches for integrated assessments of fishery systems.

Traditionally, sustainability has been assessed from a mainly ecological perspective, with the result that important socioeconomic mechanisms such as size-dependent pricing, as reported in [4], are often overlooked.

Ideally, ecological and socioeconomic perspectives are analyzed jointly, as they yield complementary insights [2] [5] [6].

EEP’s research has also drawn attention to the challenges of “evolutionary sustainability,” highlighting that fishing may favor adaptations that, in the long run, reduce the value of the provisioning services provided by fish stocks [7] [8].    

Furthermore, new research in EEP has shown that the evolutionary and economic dimensions are fundamentally linked [1] (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Productivity of the cod stock in the Barents Sea increases when the stock is adapting to fishing.

Finally, a comprehensive framework for assessing consequences of management policies through the integration of eco-evolutionary and socioeconomic perspectives has been introduced in terms of so-called Evolutionary Impact Assessments (EvoIAs) [9]. This utility of this innovative approach has already been demonstrated in a case study of the plaice fishery in the North Sea  [10]. 

Ultimately, managing aquatic systems requires reconciliation of the preferences of all stakeholders with an interest in the resources and services these systems can provide. To facilitate the identification of management options that are agreeable to all stakeholders, EEP are developing a framework for the evaluation of joint stakeholder satisfaction based on multi-criteria utility functions [11]. In 2013 work on this line of research focused on integrating into this framework analyses of the consequences of various kinds of uncertainties.

Last edited: 27 May 2014