Database-driven models of the world's Large Marine Ecosystems

Christensen, Villy; Walters, Carl J.; Ahrens, Robert; Alder, Jackie; Buszowski, Joe; Christensen, Line Bang; Cheung, William W. L.; Dunne, John; Froese, Rainer; Karpouzi, Vasiliki; Kaschner, Kristin; Kearney, Kelly; Lai, S. X.; Lam, Vicki; Palomares, M.L.D.; Peters-Mason, Aja; Piroddi, Chiara; Sarmiento, Jorge L.; Steenbeek, Jeroen; Sumaila, U. Rashid; Watson, Reg; Zeller, Dirk; Pauly, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.04.041

Cited by 80 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…However, species resolution is poor in EcoOcean, which prevents addressing specific biodiversity questions (Christensen et al, 2009). This could hamper its use in LCA when the aim is to compare fishery-derived products in detail.…”

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This midpoint indicator would express the time-integrated loss of degraded habitat in km 2 degraded habitat year − 1 . The requirement of high-resolution maps of both habitat type and pressure occurrence currently limits the applicability to western (European) regions as such data is presently not available at a global scale (Halpern et al, 2008;Christensen et al, 2009). The current application potential of these methods for LCA purposes is limited to temperate ecosystems (e.g.…”

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The intrinsic vulnerability to fishing is available for 733 fish species in the Sea Around Us Project database. Polar regions are presently excluded from the modeling approach due to a lack of biomass and fishing effort data and incompleteness of catch data (Christensen et al, 2009;Alder et al, 2007). The model is thought to be less appropriate to address more specific, local-scale biodiversity changes due to the poor species resolution and the lack of local effort data (Christensen et al, 2009).…”

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This could hamper its use in LCA when the aim is to compare fishery-derived products in detail. It is thought that the EcoOcean submodels provide a well-defined starting point, but they should be enriched with local data (Christensen et al, 2009). Generic methods to quantify impacts of fishing on the target population, i.e.…”

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards a meaningful assessment of marine ecological impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA)

Woods

Veltman

Huijbregts

et al. 2016

Environment International

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Human demands on marine resources and space are currently unprecedented and concerns are rising over observed declines in marine biodiversity. A quantitative understanding of the impact of industrial activities on the marine environment is thus essential. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely applied method for quantifying the environmental impact of products and processes. LCA was originally developed to assess the impacts of landbased industries on mainly terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. As such, impact indicators for major drivers of marine biodiversity loss are currently lacking. We review quantitative approaches for cause-effect assessment of seven major drivers of marine biodiversity loss: climate change, ocean acidification, eutrophication-induced hypoxia, seabed damage, overexploitation of biotic resources, invasive species and marine plastic debris. Our review shows that impact indicators can be developed for all identified drivers, albeit at different levels of coverage of cause-effect pathways and variable levels of uncertainty and spatial coverage. Modeling approaches to predict the spatial distribution and intensity of human-driven interventions in the marine environment are relatively well-established and can be employed to develop spatially-explicit LCA fate factors. Modeling approaches to quantify the effects of these interventions on marine biodiversity are less well-developed. We highlight specific research challenges to facilitate a coherent incorporation of marine biodiversity loss in LCA, thereby making LCA a more comprehensive and robust environmental impact assessment tool. Research challenges of particular importance include i) incorporation of the non-linear behavior of global circulation models (GCMs) within an LCA framework and ii) improving spatial differentiation, especially the representation of coastal regions in GCMs and ocean-carbon cycle models.

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Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Lca Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Towards a meaningful assessment of marine ecological impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA)

Woods

Veltman

Huijbregts

et al. 2016

Environment International

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“…Beyond philosophical considerations about whether we should even be measuring it or what that would entail, objections to estimating aggregate OY typically revolve around applying a reductionist approach to higher levels of aggregation and as such are ignorant of the benefits of near-decomposability and associated facets of hierarchy theory. Certainly one can use complicated age-or length-based multispecies models, size spectra models, food web models, and even end-to-end ecosystem models to estimate aggregate OY (Christensen et al 2009;Link 2010;Fulton and Link 2014;Fogarty 2014). In some instances where the data and modeling capacity are available to do so, executing these models to provide estimates of aggregate OY provides a useful comparison with other methods and affords the opportunity to test the robustness of model results in a multimodel ensemble (Townsend et al 2014).…”

Section: Addressing Pragmatic Considerations Of System-level Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

System-level optimal yield: increased value, less risk, improved stability, and better fisheries

Link

2018

Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci.

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Abstract:The discipline and practice of fisheries science and management have had an useful, successful, and interesting history. The discipline has developed over the past century and a half into a very reductionist, highly quantitative, socially impactful endeavor. Yet given our collective successes in this field, some notable challenges remain. To address these challenges, many have proposed ecosystem-based fisheries management that takes a more systematic approach to the management of these living marine resources. Here I describe systems theory and associated constructs underlying system dynamics, elucidate how aggregate properties of systems can and have been used, contextualize these aggregate features relative to optimal yield, and note how this approach can produce useful estimates and outcomes for fisheries management. I explore two contrasting examples where this approach has and has not been considered, highlighting the benefits of applying such an approach. I conclude by discussing ways in which we might move forward with a portfolio approach for both the discipline and practice of fisheries science and management.Résumé : La discipline et la pratique des sciences halieutiques et de la gestion des pêches ont une histoire utile, intéressante et couronnée de succès. La discipline est devenue, au cours du dernier siècle et demi, une entreprise très réductionniste, hautement quantitative et à forte incidence sociale. Malgré nos réussites collectives dans ce domaine, des défis notables demeurent. Pour relever ces défis, de nombreuses personnes ont proposé une gestion écosystémique des pêches qui adopte une approche plus systématique de gestion de ces ressources marines vivantes. Je décris la théorie des systèmes et les constructions associées qui sous-tendent la dynamique des systèmes, j'explique comment les propriétés groupées de systèmes peuvent être utilisées et l'ont été, je mets ces éléments groupés dans un contexte de rendement optimal et je souligne comment cette approche peut produire des estimations et des résultats utiles pour la gestion des pêches. J'explore deux exemples dans lesquels cette approche a, d'une part, été prise en considération et, d'autre part, ne l'a pas été, afin de souligner les avantages de son application. Je conclus en discutant d'avenues possibles pour l'avenir qui reposent sur une approche de portefeuille tant pour la discipline que pour la pratique des sciences halieutiques et de la gestion des pêches. [Traduit par la Rédaction]

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Toward a better understanding of fish‐based contribution to ocean carbon flux

Saba

Burd

Dunne

et al. 2021

Limnology & Oceanography

145

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Fishes are the dominant vertebrates in the ocean, yet we know little of their contribution to carbon export flux at regional to global scales. We synthesize the existing information on fish-based carbon flux in coastal and pelagic waters, identify gaps and challenges in measuring this flux and approaches to address them, and recommend research priorities. Based on our synthesis of passive (fecal pellet sinking) and active (migratory) flux of fishes, we estimated that fishes contribute an average (AE standard deviation) of about 16.1% (AE 13%) to total carbon flux out of the euphotic zone. Using the mean value of model-generated global carbon flux estimates, this equates to an annual flux of 1.5 AE 1.2 Pg C yr −1 . High variability in estimations of the fish-based contribution to total carbon flux among previous field studies and reported here highlight significant methodological variations and observational gaps in our present knowledge. Community-adopted methodological standards, improved and more frequent measurements of biomass and passive and active fluxes of fishes, and stronger linkages between observations and models will decrease uncertainty, increase our confidence in the estimation of fish-based carbon flux, and enable identification of controlling factors to account for spatial and temporal variability. Better constraints on this key component of the biological pump will provide a baseline for understanding how ongoing climate change and harvest will affect the role fishes play in carbon flux. * Estimated from DVM fish standing stock in and out of 500 m, an assumed daily ration of 10% body weight, 50% assimilation efficiency, and 5% fecal carbon content. † Uncorrected for capture efficiency. ‡ Estimated from midwater fish standing stock and daily consumption rate assuming an egestion rate of 20% food intake. §Values reported here include only data where anchovy fecal pellets were present in sediment traps (in 12 out of 20 free-drifting sediment trap sampling deployments in fall of 1977 and fall of 1978). ¶ Assumes 14% capture efficiency. ** Maximum respiratory carbon flux as day-time net catches have not been corrected for capture efficiency. † † Value estimated as the geometric mean from the ranges reported in the study. ‡ ‡ Assumes 50% capture efficiency. § § Assumes 14% capture efficiency for Matsuda-Oozeki-Hu trawls and an additional 6% capture efficiency for Isaacs-Kidd midwater trawls. ¶ ¶ Calculated from Davison et al. 2013 (table 9), comparing Vertical Migrant (VM) export and Fish-Mediated Export (FME; vertical migrant + nonmigrant export) to passive POC flux measured from sediment traps at 150 m). ***Estimated from assuming total fish export flux is equivalent to 100% (fecal) plus 180% (excretory) plus 50% (mortality) of the fish standing stock (11.9-66 mg C m −2).**Atmospheric Arpege weather forecast model coupled with geochemical Hamburg ocean carbon cycle model. † † Ecosystem model that consists of several compartments and tracks elements, including carbon, for the biota and detrital pools....

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Database-driven models of the world's Large Marine Ecosystems

Cited by 80 publications

References 28 publications

Towards a meaningful assessment of marine ecological impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA)

Towards a meaningful assessment of marine ecological impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA)

System-level optimal yield: increased value, less risk, improved stability, and better fisheries

Toward a better understanding of fish‐based contribution to ocean carbon flux

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