Integrated ecosystem impacts of climate change and eutrophication on main Baltic fishery resources

Sieme Bossier, J. Rasmus Nielsen, Elin Almroth-Rosell, Anders Höglund, Francois Bastardie, Stefan Neuenfeldt, Iréne Wåhlström and Asbjørn Christensen

Ecological Modelling, 2021, vol. 453, issue C

Abstract: The Baltic Sea is a heavily impacted ecosystem with multiple pressures acting simultaneously. In order to quantify ecosystem impacts of integrated climate change and eutrophication pressures under constant high fishing pressure, and to support decision-making and policies in generating environmental and economic sustainable systems, the Baltic Atlantis holistic and mechanistic ecosystem model was applied. The overall aim was to run scenarios of separate and integrated impacts of climate and riverine nutrient load changes, taking into account the interactions of the full food web in the entire Baltic Sea. This was done to identify which of those two pressures will likely dominate the future of the Baltic Sea ecosystem, and to test effects of different riverine nutrient forcing sources as well as the Baltic Atlantis functions in relation to hydrographic spawning thresholds. By integrating the hydrography, the biology covering all trophic levels of the food web, and multiple pressures, i.e. eutrophication, climate change and fishery, we were able to evaluate relative impacts of 3 climate scenarios and 3 nutrient load scenarios, using two sources of nutrient forcing and predict likely trends in ecosystem effects. With focus on major fish stocks, our model, with its assumptions, indicated that nutrient loads are the main driver of the changes in the ecosystem as long as the hydrographic thresholds for spawning are not reached. If the thresholds are reached for the Baltic cod, climate change impact will become most important. Furthermore, higher nutrient loads resulted in cod decrease, and increase in sprat and herring. This effect is amplified by stronger climate change. Overall, it is of crucial importance for the future of the Baltic Sea fisheries and stocks that potential impacts are considered both separate and integrated in a dynamic ecosystem-based management approach.

Keywords: Atlantis ecosystem model; Baltic Sea; Climate change; Ecosystem-based management; Eutrophication; Holistic mechanistic approach; Separate and integrated pressure evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438002100171X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:453:y:2021:i:c:s030438002100171x

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2021.109609

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath

More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().