The raw material base of water biological resources in the russian waters of the Chukchi sea and its cost

Abstract

The studies carried out in this work made it possible to characterize the dynamics of the raw material base of aquatic biological resources of the Russian waters of the Chukchi Sea in 1997–2020 and evaluate its value at the present stage. The raw material base of marine fish and invertebrates varied from 5,4 to 450,1 thousand tons (with an average value of 196,7 thousand tons). It was based on marine fish – an average of 189,0 thousand tons (96,1% of all resources), stocks of invertebrates – 7,7 thousand tons (3,9%). Estimates of the commercial WBR biomass in the Chukchi Sea are approximately 24 times lower than the estimates of the resource base of the western part of the Bering Sea: 4,1 and 5,1% of the biomass of marine fish and invertebrates, respectively. Stocks of hydrobionts showed a gradual downward trend from 1997 to 2007, a low level in 2008–2017 and a sharp rise in 2018–2020. Significant growth in resources in the late 2010s led to mass walleye pollock migration to the Chukchi shelf from the Bering Sea, which led to an increase in the raw material base of WBR by 431 thousand tons and a concomitant increase in its cost by 23,7 billion rubles. The cost of the raw material base of the Russian waters of the Chukchi Sea in 2019–2020 amounted to 34–51 billion rubles, in absolute terms yielding to the Bering and Okhotsk seas by 14,0 and 31,3 times. The most valuable species of bioresources in terms of value were cod fish (walleye pollock Gadus chalcogrammus) and crabs (snow crab Chionoecetes opilio), the total contribution of which exceeds 90% of the total value of the estimated commercial stocks of the sea. With a high probability, it can be assumed that it is these types of WBR that will form the economic basis of the Russian fishery in the Chukchi Sea in the future.