Economic and Ecosystem Effects of Fishing on the Northeast US Shelf

Abstract

Modeling tools that can demonstrate possible consequences of strategies designed to operationalize ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) should be able to address tradeoffs over a wide suite of considerations representing the scope of marine management objectives. Coupled ecological-economic modeling, where models for ecological and economic subsystems are linked through their inputs and outputs, allows for quantification of such tradeoffs. Here, we link the harvest output from fishery management scenarios implemented in an end-to-end ecosystem model (Atlantis) to an input-output regional economic model for the Northeast United States to calculate changes in socioeconomic indicators, including the consequences of management action for regional sales, wages, and employment. We implement three simple scenarios (maintain, decrease, or increase current fishing effort), and compare model-projected values for systematic and sector-specific indicators. Systematic indicators revealed different ecological and economic outcomes, with large ecological responses and clear tradeoffs among the catch and biomass of species groups. Economic indicators for the region responded similarly to fishery yield; however, changes in total sales did not match those in landed catch. Under increased fishing effort, a lower proportional increase in sales relative to total landed catch arose due to increased yield from lower value species groups. Average fisheries income changed little among scenarios, but was highest when effort was maintained at current levels, likely a reflection of fleet and catch stability. Our results serve to demonstrate that consequences of management may be felt disproportionately among species through the region and across different fisheries sectors. With our coupled modeling approach of passing Atlantis ecosystem model outputs to an input-output economic model, we were able to assess effects of fisheries management across a broader suite of indicators that have relevance for policymakers across multiple objectives.

Exploring Balanced Harvesting by Using an Atlantis Ecosystem Model for the Nordic and Barents Seas

“…Frontiers in Marine Science | www.frontiersin.org flat constant selectivity applied. The results are presented through changes in biomass (tons wet weight), catch (tons wet weight) and a set of indicators based on Fay et al (2019). Price per kilo catch was taken from Sildesalgslaget (Norges Sildesalgslag, 2019) for the pelagic components and Råfisklaget (Norsk Råfisklag, 2019) for the demersal components.…”

Management Strategy Evaluation: Allowing the Light on the Hill to Illuminate More Than One Species

“…However, Punt (2017) also noted the lack of consistent output metrics in ecosystem MSEs, though generally those metrics attempt to summarize status of habitats and non-target species, recovery of threatened and endangered species, and at times social and management objectives. In the last several years progress has been made, as many ecosystem modeling efforts have converged upon using similar sets of performance metrics based on ecological indicators and guildlevel biomass (Marshall et al, 2017;Olsen et al, 2018;Fay et al, 2019;Hansen et al, 2019b;Kaplan et al, 2020;Nilsen et al, 2020). Further tailoring of ecosystem performance metrics requires long-term commitment to stakeholder engagement, which in the United States is typically at the level of Fishery Management Councils.…”

How Does Climate Change Affect Emergent Properties of Aquatic Ecosystems?

“…To meet these needs, recent investigations have constructed ecosystem‐level models for evaluating freshwater and marine communities around the globe (Nyamweya et al 2017; Sturludottir et al 2018; Fay et al 2019). For example, food web models leveraging the results of observational or experimental studies have often been used to enhance understanding of the structure of an ecosystem and identify leading indicators or nodes most sensitive to perturbation spanning multiple levels of biodiversity (e.g., genes, species, guild; Masi et al 2017; Sturludottir et al 2018; Fu et al 2019; Hansen et al 2019).…”

“…End‐to‐end ecosystem modeling approaches, which seek to represent all components of socio‐ecological systems, have enabled comparisons of system‐level outcomes from different scenarios and cost–benefit analyses of management actions (Beaugrand 2014; Möllmann et al 2015). Such models have served as tools to explore the socioeconomic implications of changing ecosystem structure (Fay et al 2019), evaluate resource management strategies (Nyamweya et al 2017), and project the impacts of future climatic and harvest scenarios (Olsen et al 2018). For example, Fay et al (2019) modeled the northeastern United States and found that changes in fishing effort led to strong responses, with clear tradeoffs among species and fishery sectors, but that regional market sales scaled nonlinearly with total landings, and regional income was relatively similar across scenarios.…”

“…Such models have served as tools to explore the socioeconomic implications of changing ecosystem structure (Fay et al 2019), evaluate resource management strategies (Nyamweya et al 2017), and project the impacts of future climatic and harvest scenarios (Olsen et al 2018). For example, Fay et al (2019) modeled the northeastern United States and found that changes in fishing effort led to strong responses, with clear tradeoffs among species and fishery sectors, but that regional market sales scaled nonlinearly with total landings, and regional income was relatively similar across scenarios. In addition, Olsen et al (2018) found across many ecosystems that cumulative negative and positive impacts of ocean acidification and marine protected areas, respectively, were generally greater than effects from altering fishing mortality.…”