Cooperative Fisheries Outperform Non-cooperative Ones in the Baltic Sea Under Different Climate Scenarios

Sezgin Tunca,Marko Lindroos,Martin Lindegren,Lars Ravn-Jonsen

doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00622

Sezgin Tunca, Marko Lindroos + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00622

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Abstract

Game theory has been an effective tool to generate solutions for decision making in fisheries involving multiple countries and fleets. Here, we use a coupled bio-economic model based on a Baltic Sea dynamic multispecies food web model called BALMAR and, we compare non-cooperative (NC) and cooperative game (Grand Coalition: GC) solutions. Applications of game theory based on a food web model under climate change have not been studied before and the present study aims to fill this gap in the literature. The study focuses on the effects of climate variability on the biological, harvest and economic output of the game models by examining two different climate scenarios, a first scenario characterized by low temperature and high salinity and a second scenario by high temperature and low salinity. Our results showed that in the first scenario sprat spawning stock biomass (SSB) and harvest dropped dramatically both in the NC and the GC cases whereas, herring and cod SSBs and harvests were higher compared to a base scenario keeping temperature and salinity at mean historical levels. In the second scenario, the sprat SSB and the harvest was higher for both GC and NC cases while the cod and the herring SSBs and harvests were lower. The total GC payoffs clearly outperformed the NC payoffs across all scenarios. Likewise, the first and second scenario GC payoffs for countries were higher except for Poland. The findings suggested the climate vulnerability of Baltic Sea multi-species fisheries and these results would support future decision-making processes of Baltic Sea fisheries.

Highlights

Game theory has been an effective tool to generate solutions for decision making in many fields (Eatwell et al, 1989)
Sprat spawning stock biomass (SSB) dropped dramatically both in the NC and the GC cases whereas, herring and cod stocks were higher compared to the base scenario (BS) (Figure 1)
Sprat SSB was higher for both GC and NC cases while cod and the herring were lower compared to the BS (Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

Game theory has been an effective tool to generate solutions for decision making in many fields (e.g., policy making, military methodologies, environmental and natural resource economics and management) (Eatwell et al, 1989). The nature of game theory is highly suited for management problems in fisheries, as the fishers want to increase their economic profits from their activity that generates positive and negative externalities for the resource users and nonusers (Bailey et al, 2010). Many conflicts arise concerning fishing rights on highly migratory and range shifting species (Pinsky et al, 2018), often as a response to climate change (Perry et al, 2005; Pinsky et al, 2013). Cooperative agreements provide resilience through time so that the states can react flexibly to the impact of unexpected shifts in, e.g., biology, climate, and economy (FAO, 2016). One instrument to provide flexibility for such conflicts is side payments that prevent the losses generated by the inequality raised by these shifts (induced mainly by climate change) (Miller and Munro, 2004). Single-species game theoretic studies (e.g., Diekert et al, 2010; Bjørndal and Lindroos, 2012; Kulmala et al, 2013) and multispecies game theoretic models have been utilized for various fisheries management issues concerning climatic and other environmental variations in the literature (Nieminen et al, 2012, 2016)

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