Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) in fisheries: Implementation in EU fishing regions

Abstract

An Impact Assessment (IA) is a process aimed at structuring and supporting the development of policies. Besides the fact that IA assumes different features when applied to different sectors, really it should help policy makers in evaluating the contribution to the fisheries sustainability of new regulations. The recent improvements and development around the IA methodologies go more and more toward the concept of a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA). The evolution of IA in the fishery sector has followed the general and increasing need in having a more and more integrated type of analysis, focusing on the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic and social). This paper synthesizes the methodology developed under the EU FP7 SOCIOEC project,1 whose main objective was the application of the most recent EU guidelines on IA to the current (and future) EU fishery management. The result is an integrated approach taking into account the main pillars of sustainability and a strong stakeholders' involvement. A clear step-by-step procedure based on both qualitative and quantitative type of analyses has been defined, the last step being the "rating" phase, an essential step in a SIA, that provides the Please note that this is an author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available on the publisher Web site. possibility to assess the results of different policy options (allowing policy makers to select the most appropriate one) in terms of acceptability, effectiveness, coherence and efficiency. The overall methodology has been tested on different EU regions, fisheries and management measures.

Towards transdisciplinary decision-support processes in fisheries: experiences and recommendations from a multidisciplinary collective of researchers

“…Nevertheless, this requires transparency on roles at different scales to avoid confusion, making a tool of participation or conflict of interest (Dankel et al, 2016). Participatory approaches described for example in Malvarosa et al (2019) or Macher et al (2018a) for impact assessment in fisheries propose processes for engagement and frameworks tending to clarify roles at each step. Discussions also highlighted the complementary need to reflect on research stances (i.e.…”

“…Approaches involving multiple stakeholders and scientists in knowledge production and evaluation of management strategies have increased in recent years driven by expected societal impact, acknowledgement of the added value of meaningful stakeholder engagement in support of marine resource management and funding incentives (Gray, 2005;Gray and Hatchard, 2008;Wilson, 2009;Jentoft and Chuenpagdee, 2009;Berghöfer et al, 2008;Reed, 2008;Mackinson et al, 2011;Röckmann et al, 2012Röckmann et al, , 2018Malvarosa et al, 2019;Sampedro et al, 2017;Macher et al, 2018a;Ballesteros et al, 2018;Dickey-Collas and Ballesteros, 2019;ICES, 2018ICES, , 2019Holm et al, 2020). However, Gray and Hatchard (2008) point out that stakeholder participation (SP) in EBFM is characterised by complex linkages in the decision-making process.…”

Socio-Economic Impacts of the Common Fisheries Policy on South and Central Tyrrhenian Sea (GSA 10) Demersal Trawl Fisheries

“…The latest EU guidelines [12] regarding IAs require ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of management measures in terms of effectiveness. Some recent studies have tried to adapt these guidelines to EU-wide fisheries management and have proposed specific indicators -the Target Effectiveness Indicator (TEI) and the Limit Effectiveness Indicator (LEI) -to evaluate the effectiveness of CFP socio-economic measures [13].…”

Potential for Mesopelagic Fishery Compared to Economy and Fisheries Dynamics in Current Large Scale Danish Pelagic Fishery

“…The high levels of lipid and fatty acid contents found in B. glaciale and M. muelleri (Phleger et al, 1999;Lea et al, 2002;El-Mowafi et al, 2010;Koizumi et al, 2014;Grimaldo et al, 2020) make the species commercially and economically interesting for industrial, neutraceutical, and pharmaceutical purposes (Gjosaeter and Kawaguchi, 1980;Gjosaeter and Tilseth, 1983;Gjosaeter, 1984;Johannesson, 1991;Lamhauge et al, 2008;Tacon and Metian, 2009;Irigoien et al, 2014;Olsen and Torrisen, 2015;Grimaldo et al, 2018Grimaldo et al, , 2020Davidson et al, 2019). Some trial fisheries and surveys on mesopelagic species have already been conducted in different parts of the world; in the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, the California Current, and the Northeast Atlantic (Valinassab, 1998;Lamhauge et al, 2008;Sebastine et al, 2013;Davison et al, 2015;Grimaldo et al, 2018Grimaldo et al, , 2020Malvarosa et al, 2019). But before such potential large-scale exploitation the ecological and the economic sustainability of the fishery needs to be thoroughly assessed.…”

“…Similar to the ecological sustainability, the economic sustainability of the potential fishery needs to be thoroughly assessed to investigate if the fishery is at all economically viable (Valinassab et al, 2007;van Putten et al, 2012;Malvarosa et al, 2019;Prellezo, 2019). Adaptations or new developments in catch and processing methods will be necessary to efficiently exploit the potential resource, including vessel investments, and gear modifications (e.g., Grimaldo et al, 2018Grimaldo et al, , 2020.…”