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Abstract
Coastal ecosystems worldwide are under pressure from human-induced nutrient inputs, fishing activities, mariculture, construction work, and climate change. Integrated management instruments handling one or more of these problems in combination with socioeconomic issues are therefore necessary to secure a sustainable use of resources. In the Limfjord, a temperate eutrophic estuary in Denmark, nutrient load reductions are necessary to fulfill EU regulations such as the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The expected outcome of these load reductions is an improved water quality, but also reduced production of the abundant stock of filter-feeding blue mussels, Mytilus edulis. This is expected to have significant economic consequences for the million-euro mussel fishing industry taking place in the Limfjord today. We developed a bioeconomic model that can be used to explore the consequences of load reductions for mussel fishery as practiced today, as well as potential management options, to obtain an economically and ecologically sustainable mussel fishery. Model simulations clearly demonstrate a substantial decrease in mussel production after the nutrient load reductions necessary to obtain the targets in the WFD. With today's practice, the mussel fishery in the Limfjord will not be profitable in a future, less eutrophic estuary. However, model simulations also revealed that mussel fishery can be profitable after implementation of the WFD with a reduction in the total fishing quota, fewer fishing vessels, and a higher fishing quota per vessel.
Highlights
Coastal regions are the most densely populated parts of the Earth, and human activities put the integrity of coastal marine ecosystems under pressure in various ways, e.g., from nutrient loadings, intense fishing, construction work, and climate change
We developed a bioeconomic model that can be used to explore the consequences of load reductions for mussel fishery as practiced today, as well as potential management options, to obtain an economically and ecologically sustainable mussel fishery
Empirical relation between primary production and nutrient loading The results of the multiple linear regression (MLR) model describing the spring phytoplankton primary production are shown in figures 3A and 3B
Summary
Coastal regions are the most densely populated parts of the Earth, and human activities put the integrity of coastal marine ecosystems under pressure in various ways, e.g., from nutrient loadings, intense fishing, construction work, and climate change. The management systems already in place often control these pressures on a sectorial level, even though attempts have been made to encompass multiple ecosystem components, such as guidelines for the implementation of the ecosystem approach to fisheries framework (Garcia and Cochrane 2005) This approach has encouraged the development of bioeconomic models to explore the ecological and economic consequences of management options for different species, such as shellfish (Imeson and Van den Bergh 2004), swordfish (Tserpes et al 2009), and shrimp (Huang and Smith 2011). An example of a practical implementation of this is the WadBOS system developed for the Dutch Wadden Sea to get a holistic overview of the system and to improve management (Engelen et al 2003) With this tool, new policy solutions for two human activities, shellfish fishery and recreational boating, were explored in terms of economic and ecological consequences, and they included different stakeholders (information available at http:// www.riks.nl/Resources/papers/ManualWadBOSInternational.pdf)
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