Abstract
Globally, our knowledge on lake fisheries is still limited despite their importance to food security and livelihoods. Here we show that fish catches can respond either positively or negatively to climate and land-use changes, by analyzing time-series data (1970–2014) for 31 lakes across five continents. We find that effects of a climate or land-use driver (e.g., air temperature) on lake environment could be relatively consistent in directions, but consequential changes in a lake-environmental factor (e.g., water temperature) could result in either increases or decreases in fish catch in a given lake. A subsequent correlation analysis indicates that reductions in fish catch was less likely to occur in response to potential climate and land-use changes if a lake is located in a region with greater access to clean water. This finding suggests that adequate investments for water-quality protection and water-use efficiency can provide additional benefits to lake fisheries and food security.
Highlights
Our knowledge on lake fisheries is still limited despite their importance to food security and livelihoods
Four of the six Bayesian networks model (BNM) variable pairs between the climate land-use drivers and lakeenvironmental factors were consistent in the directional relationships across at least half of the 31 study lakes: across the study lakes (AT) was positively related to water temperature (WT) in all 31 study lakes, but negatively related to water level (WL) in 17 lakes, PRE was positively related to WL in 29 lakes, and LUag was positively related to chlorophyll a (CHL), the measure of primary productivity in this study, in 16 lakes
None of the 5 BNM variable pairs relating lake-environmental factors to each other or to CATCH had a consistent directional relationship across the study lakes, the closest was WT being negatively related to CHL in 15 lakes
Summary
Our knowledge on lake fisheries is still limited despite their importance to food security and livelihoods. Reduced lake CATCHs caused by climate and land-use changes can threaten food security and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide, especially in impoverished countries where rural poor communities may not have appropriate alternative sources of animal protein and employment opportunity[16]. Due to their protracted and compounding nature, understanding the effects of climate and land-use changes on lake
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