A global synthesis of climate vulnerability assessments on marine fisheries: Methods, scales, and knowledge co-production

Social-ecological vulnerability and risk of China's marine capture fisheries to climate change

Climate change is a new disrupter to global fisheries systems and their governance frameworks. It poses a pressing management challenge, particularly in China, which is renowned as the world's largest fishing country and seafood producer. As climate change continues to intensify in the region and climate awareness grows within the country's national policy, the need to understand China's fisheries' resilience to the escalating climate crisis becomes paramount. In this study, we conduct an interdisciplinary analysis to assess the vulnerability and risk of China's marine capture fisheries in response to climate change. This study employs a spatially explicit, indicator-based approach with a coupled social-ecological framework, focusing on 67 species and 11 coastal regions. By integrating diverse sets of climatic, ecological, economic, societal, and governance indicators and information, we elucidate the factors that could hinder climate adaptation, including a limited understanding of fish early life stages, uncertainty in seafood production, unequal allocation and accessibility of resources, and inadequate consideration of inclusive governance and adaptive management. Our results show that species, which have managed to survive the stress of overfishing, demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt to climate change. However, collapsing stocks such as large yellow croaker face a high risk due to the synergistic effects of inherent biological traits and external management interventions. We emphasize the imperative to build institutional, scientific, and social capacity to support fisheries adaptation. The scientific insights provided by this study can inform fisheries management decisions and promote the operationalization of climate-resilient fisheries in China and other regions.

The evolution of information and communications technology in the fishery industry: The pathway for marine sustainability

There is reason for concern, given the history of technology in the seas. Too often, the extinction and contamination of marine species have been exacerbated by technical advancements and more potent fisheries equipment. By considering the roles of fisheries production, information and communication technology, human capital, governance, carbon dioxide emissions, and economic growth from 1990 to 2022, this paper seeks to investigate the dynamic effect of ICT on the sustainability of the fisheries industry in 27 European countries. The findings showed a substantial positive link between information and communication technology and the fisheries sector at higher quantiles using the new Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) with fixed effects. Additionally, in the EU27 nations, the impact of economic growth was favorably significant across most quantiles. The findings show that the EU14 developed nations have greater ICT and economic development than the EU13 underdeveloped countries, which significantly benefits fisheries sustainability. At lower quantiles, the data revealed a significant positive association between human capital and the fisheries sector. Results show that developing countries in the EU13 have more significant human capital than industrialized nations in the EU14, which considerably benefits fisheries sustainability. On the other hand, across all quantiles in the EU27 area, the findings revealed a substantial positive link between carbon dioxide emissions and the fisheries sector. EU14 developed countries have a larger significant positive magnitude between carbon dioxide emissions and fisheries output than the EU13 underdeveloped nations. To accomplish sustainable development objectives, this study provides policymakers insight into how to encourage technological transmission factors in the EU14 and EU13 nations via effective and environmentally friendly technology in the fisheries sector.