Developing fisheries management indicators and targets (DEFINEIT)

The project aimed to produce the tools necessary to determine the economically optimal level of exploitation of European ecosystems under changing climatic conditions while ensuring that the pressure exerted on both commercial stocks and susceptible fish species is biologically sustainable.
DEFINEIT produced the tools necessary to determine the optimal economic level of exploitation of North European marine fish resources, combining knowledge on species interactions, recruitment processes, vulnerable species and socio-economic aspects. Marine ecosystems consist of many species (including humans) affecting each other in complex ways and estimating the optimal exploitation level requires advanced mathematical models. These models estimate the response of the ecosystem to different levels of fishing. DEFINEIT constructed mathematical models of fish stock dynamics which explicitly took account of species interactions, vulnerable species and exploitation to allow estimation of the effect of different fishing management objectives on the marine ecosystem. These models were combined with economical models to predict the fishing effort require to reach the optimal yield and the effect of pursuing this yield on socioeconomic aspects. Geographically, the models covered a wide geographic area ranging from the Baltic Sea over the North Sea to the Barents Sea and Icelandic Seas.