Climate Change and the Economics of the World’s Fisheries

Many records provide the bases for a clearer understanding of the roles of climate regime shifts and short-term perturbations in ecosystem dynamics, hence fisheries responses. Too few have taken the long view of the role of humans in this "Grand Fugue". As one of many predators, it is imperative that humans begin to understand that our various activities are subject to basic ecological principles, such as the concepts of growth limitations imposed by scarcities and habitat debilitations. Most of human history (evolution, growth, colonizations, displacements, resource scarcity, competition for resources) are direct consequences of normal, natural climate fluctuations, and local, regional and global ecological responses. Early fisheries were subsistence levels, with some situations where fishing communities bartered or traded for goods from adjacent highlands or forest cultures. We have also become extremely vulnerable to any persistent climate changes. Following the Medieval Warm period (~900-1180), the onset of the Little Ice Age (LIA) brought changes in regional productivity, disease, and death that began the global transition from Feudal society to the "pay as you go" economics that now dominate the world's major economies. Over the recent two to three centuries humans have swarmed over the remaining terrain, and spread out onto the seas. Modern history relates the continuous growth, expansion and generalized superposition of industrial fisheries onto older coastal subsistence communities, initiating extensive competition, overexploitation, and with resultant dwindling resources and habitat destruction. I have started a Timeline of Fisheries Development that provides a framework of information upon which these facts are derived: <.http://www.monterey.edu/faculty/SharpGary/world/FisheryTimeline.html> I will continue to develop the Timeline, so that others might learn how humans resolve the issues of complex aquatic ecosystems, limited resource sharing, or not.

2013

Climate change and changes in biogeochemical conditions of the ocean lead to changes in distribution of marine species and ocean productivity. These changes would affect fisheries, food security, livelihood of fishing communities and eventually the whole economy in different countries. This thesis uses simulation modelling to assess the direct impacts of Preface This thesis was designed, conducted and written by me, with the guidance of Dr. Rashid Sumaila. Other than Chapters 1 and 6, all the Chapters in this dissertation have been published or prepared for publication. Chapters 2 and 4 have been published. Chapter 5 is currently under review while Chapter 3 is being prepared for submission. I am the first author on all of these papers, and I led their design, analysis and writing.

BioScience, 1993

Contents 1. Climate change 2. Fisheries 3. Fisheries and climate 4. Climate changes in the interannual to multidecadal scales 5. Global warming 6. Economic and social aspects of climate change and fisheries 7. Conclusions Acknowledgments Related chapters Glossary Bibliography Biographical Sketch Summary Climatic changes influence the numbers and distribution of fish populations directly, through physiological and population dynamics responses to abiotic factors, and indirectly through the availability of food, and the presence of competitors and predators. This article considers climate changes occurring at different time scales, including the interannual (between years, includes El Nio-Southern Oscillation), the interdecadal (Pacific decadal oscillation and North Atlantic oscillation), and the multidecadal (such as the 40 to 60 years fluctuations observed in sardines and anchovies from different systems). Even when this article does not discuss the causes and long term trend of the observed global warming during the last decades, a short review on potential impacts on fish resources is provided. Fisheries tend to be highly vulnerable systems, where economic and social impacts depend on the kind of fishery, the biology of the fish resources, the properties of the environment where they live and the cultural, historical, economic, and social reality of humans participating in the activity. Some discussion on potential adaptation strategies at the regional to national level are also considered, particularly on the value of adopting the flexible economy model as the most socially friendly strategy under high uncertainty scenarios (as those related to climate changes). Today, fisheries management is moving towards ecosystem based management, meaning that one should regard not only the biology of the target population, but also its ecological interactions with other resources and non exploited populations, the interactions between the fisheries and other values from the ecosystem, and of course the fact that concepts like carrying capacity, limiting factors, and ecological controls, are only instantaneous abstractions to study ecosystems, and that there is no fixed level of biomass for any natural population. Consequently, fisheries sciences are rapidly evolving into a dynamic field with strong interactions of a broad spectrum of disciplines.

has been working in fisheries for over 20 years now, the first nine years with the Bay of Bengal Programme of the FAO (FAO-BOBP) and latterly as an independent consultant. His area of interest/ work is small-scale fisheries and livelihoods. Within this broad area, he has worked for a wide range of national and international agencies on diverse topics such as post-harvest issues and marketing, trade, fisheries management, and livelihood enhancement and diversification.

2022

Focusing on economic methods, this study provides a comprehensive review of the current research in fisheries and aquaculture within the context of climate change. We find there has been remarkable progress in evaluating the biophysical impacts of climate change on fish. However, the effect those impacts have on future fish stocks, yields, and dynamics are less understood. Climate change adaptation strategies in fisheries and aquaculture lack quantitative assessment, while current vulnerability indices rely heavily on subjective weighting schemes. Economic studies involving fisheries and aquaculture have seen some recent advancements but can be improved through incorporating methods from other disciplines, notably agricultural economics. Relative to its increasingly large role in global fish supply, the aquaculture sector is found to be under-represented in the economic literature. We suggest that future research in fisheries and aquaculture should further incorporate methods from a...

The Wiley-Blackwell Fish and Aquatic Resources Series is an initiative aimed at providing key books in this fast-moving field, published to a high international standard.

Although climate change is altering the productivity and distribution of marine fisheries, climate-adaptive fisheries management could mitigate many of the negative impacts on human society. We forecast global fisheries biomass, catch, and profits to 2100 under three climate scenarios (RCPs 4.5, 6.0, 8.5) and five levels of management reform to (1) determine the impact of climate change on national fisheries and (2) quantify the national-scale benefits of implementing climate-adaptive fisheries reforms. Management reforms accounting for shifting productivity and shifting distributions would yield higher catch and profits in the future relative to today for 60-65% of countries under the two least severe climate scenarios but for only 35% of countries under the most severe scenario. Furthermore, these management reforms would yield higher cumulative catch and profits than business-as-usual management for nearly all countries under the two least severe climate scenarios but would yield...

Journal of Marine Systems, 2010

The world's small pelagic fish populations, their fisheries, fishmeal and fish oil production industries and markets are part of a globalised production and consumption system. The potential for climate variability and change to alter the balance in this system is explored by means of bioeconomic models at two different temporal scales, with the objective of investigating the interactive nature of environmental and humaninduced changes on this globalised system. Short-term (interannual) environmental impacts on fishmeal production are considered by including an annual variable production rate on individual small pelagic fish stocks over a 10-year simulation period. These impacts on the resources are perceived by the fishmeal markets, where they are confronted by two aquaculture expansion hypotheses. Long-term (2080) environmental impacts on the same stocks are estimated using long-term primary production predictions as proxies for the species' carrying capacities, rather than using variable production rates, and are confronted on the market side by two alternative fishmeal management scenarios consistent with IPCC-type storylines. The two scenarios, World Markets and Global Commons, are parameterized through classic equilibrium solutions for a global surplus production bioeconomic model, namely maximum sustainable yield and open access, respectively. The fisheries explicitly modelled in this paper represent 70% of total fishmeal production, thus encapsulating the expected dynamics of the global production and consumption system. Both short and long-term simulations suggest that the sustainability of the small pelagic resources, in the face of climate variability and change, depends more on how society responds to climate impacts than on the magnitude of climate alterations per se.

Academia Engineering, 2023

Greening the environment can improve soundscapes by reducing unwanted sounds and introducing sounds that are generally considered more desirable. This review concentrates on the physics by which increasing the area of natural ground cover and vegetation can reduce sound levels. Most naturally occurring ground surfaces are porous. If a source of sound and a listener are close to a porous ground surface, the sound reflected from the surface combines with sound travelling directly to the listener such that the phase difference due to path length difference adds to the phase change during reflection at the surface. At the listener, the two components will partly cancel each other, in other words the direct and reflected waves interfere destructively, and there is a reduction in the total sound level over a range of frequencies. Also, viscous drag and heat exchange at leaf surfaces adds to sound attenuation. Measurements and predictions show that the viscous and thermal processes and ‘soft’ ground effect are the most important contributors to sound attenuation through crops and densely planted trees and contribute to the acoustical influences of roof top gardens and vegetated façades. Although widely used schemes for predicting outdoor noise allow for porous ground effect and for attenuation through foliage, they are not sufficiently accurate either to explore the potential for noise reduction from ‘greening’ or to be useful in devising plans to exploit it. Improved prediction schemes are key to realising the potential of greening for noise reduction.

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2012

We note a tendency in organizational behavior research to link positive emotions with positive outcomes and negative emotions with negative outcomes. In this Incubator, we argue against this simple association and provide suggestions for researchers to develop interesting lines of enquiry that look beyond simple symmetrical associations.