Co-creating a decision support framework to ensure sustainable fish production in Europe under climate change (ClimeFish)

Description:

The overall goal of ClimeFish is to help ensure that the increase in seafood production comes in areas and for species where there is a potential for sustainable growth, given the expected developments in climate, thus contributing to robust employment and sustainable development of rural and coastal communities. ClimeFish also contributes to establishing fisheries and aquaculture management plans coherent with the precautionary approach, in co-creation with the operators and other stakeholders. ClimeFish has eight specific objectives:

• Investigate the effects of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture at European and regional scale, and collect and harmonize relevant data.
• Develop novel forecasting models to simulate and analyse changes in distribution and production in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
• Identify risks and opportunities based on analysis of market and non-market costs and benefits of affected ecosystem services and propose potential mitigation strategies.
• Develop early warning methodologies for these risks, including a traffic-light system.
• In co-creation with stakeholders, develop case-specific Management Plans that mitigate risks and utilize opportunities associated with anticipated effects of climate change on aquatic production, based on ecosystem and results-based management approaches.
• In co-creation with stakeholders, develop guidelines, good practice recommendations and a voluntary European standard outlining how to develop this type of Management Plans in the future.
• In co-creation with stakeholders, develop the ClimeFish Decision Support Framework. This contains the ClimeFish Decision Support System and other decision support resources, such as models, datasets, sample runs and guidelines.
• Provide training and dissemination for industry, policy makers, scientists and other stakeholders as well as ensure active utilization of the developed tools and guidelines beyond the project lifetime.

ClimeFish forecasting is based on two IPPC climate scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). ClimeFish focuses on three production sectors: marine aquaculture, marine fisheries, and lake and pond production. These are represented by 15 case studies:

• Marine fisheries: the Baltic Sea (two cases), North East Atlantic, Barents Sea, West of Scotland, Adriatic Sea.
• Freshwater lakes and ponds: North Norwegian lakes, Lake Garda in Italy, Czech Republic lakes, Hungary.
• Marine aquaculture: North East Atlantic, Greece, Spain, Scotland, Italy.

ClimeFish project developed Virtual Factsheets for case studies, Guidelines for creating Climate Change Adaptation Plans, Decision Support Systems in collaboration with stakeholders (Hungarian pond aquaculture, Greek marine aquaculture) and the Decision Support Framework containing case study results and decision support resources.

Project information

Lead

UiT-the Arctic University of Norway

Partners

Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), Biological Centre CAS (Check Republic), AVS Chile (Chile), ICES – International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Denmark), Syntesa (Faeroe Islands), HAKI – Research Institute for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Irrigation, Brandenburg University of Technology (Germany), HCMR – Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Greece), Szarvas (Hungary), Matis (Iceland), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), Institute of Marine Research (Norway), Nofima (Norway), CETMAR - Centro Tecnológico del Mar (Spain), SCIS-IIM - Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigación Científica – Instituto de Investigación Marina (Spain), Stockholm University (Sweden), University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom), University of Stirling (United Kingdom), Nha Trang University (Vietnam), FEAP - Federation of European Aquaculture Producers, FAO – Food and Agriculture Organisations of the United Nations.

Source of funding

H2020-SC2-BG2-2015