Abstract
We developed numerical simulations of potential future ecological states of the Baltic Sea ecosystem at the end of century under five scenarios. We used a spatial food web (Ecospace) model, forced by a physical–biogeochemical model. The scenarios are built on consistent storylines that describe plausible developments of climatic and socioeconomic factors in the Baltic Sea region. Modelled species diversity and fish catches are driven by climate- and nutrient load-related changes in habitat quality and by fisheries management strategies. Our results suggest that a scenario including low greenhouse gas concentrations and nutrient pollution and ecologically focused fisheries management results in high biodiversity and catch value. On the other hand, scenarios envisioning increasing societal inequality or economic growth based on fossil fuels, high greenhouse gas emissions and high nutrient loads result in decreased habitat quality and diminished biodiversity. Under the latter scenarios catches are high but they predominantly consist of lower-valued fish.
Highlights
Environmental scientists are often faced with questions about how changes in anthropogenic drivers of pollutionElectronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.and extractive uses of the marine environments are likely to alter the state of ecosystems and living marine resources
Overall habitat quality in the simulated future scenarios is always lower than in simulations corresponding to the ‘current’ state, except in the Nature First scenario (Fig. 2). Under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, habitat quality is highest under the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) nutrient scenario and lowest under the WORST nutrient scenario, due to negative effects of expanding hypoxia (Fig. S4)
Under a given nutrient scenario, habitat quality is always lower under RCP8.5 than under RCP4.5, due to decreasing salinity (Fig. S6)
Summary
Cheung et al (2016) suggested that one of the major sources of uncertainty in exploring the potential future of living marine resources is scenario uncertainty, defined as uncertainty due to future developments in the natural and anthropogenic drivers of the modelled system. This is important to consider, as climate change, eutrophication and a number of societal developments may interact and significantly alter how human activities affect marine systems (Planque et al 2010). One of the major pressures on marine ecosystems is exploitation by fisheries. Cheung et al (2016) suggested that fishing sectorspecific storylines need to be developed and combined with climate and broader socioeconomic scenarios to investigate the future states of living marine resources
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