Do Radioactive Spills from the Fukushima Disaster Have Any Influence on the Japanese Seafood Market?

Wakamatsu, Hidefumi; Miyata, Tsutomu

doi:10.1086/683686

Cited by 16 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Nevertheless, not all disturbances will manifest in prices. A recent assessment of the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the Japanese markets for whitefish did not find price effects (29). In this case, there is a clear quantity effect (decreased purchases of locally caught Japanese fish) but no price change due to the highly integrated nature of the global whitefish market.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Seafood prices reveal impacts of a major ecological disturbance

Smith

Øglend

Kirkpatrick

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Coastal hypoxia (dissolved oxygen ≤ 2 mg/L) is a growing problem worldwide that threatens marine ecosystem services, but little is known about economic effects on fisheries. Here, we provide evidence that hypoxia causes economic impacts on a major fishery. Ecological studies of hypoxia and marine fauna suggest multiple mechanisms through which hypoxia can skew a population's size distribution toward smaller individuals. These mechanisms produce sharp predictions about changes in seafood markets. Hypoxia is hypothesized to decrease the quantity of large shrimp relative to small shrimp and increase the price of large shrimp relative to small shrimp. We test these hypotheses using time series of size-based prices. Naive quantitybased models using treatment/control comparisons in hypoxic and nonhypoxic areas produce null results, but we find strong evidence of the hypothesized effects in the relative prices: Hypoxia increases the relative price of large shrimp compared with small shrimp. The effects of fuel prices provide supporting evidence. Empirical models of fishing effort and bioeconomic simulations explain why quantifying effects of hypoxia on fisheries using quantity data has been inconclusive. Specifically, spatial-dynamic feedbacks across the natural system (the fish stock) and human system (the mobile fishing fleet) confound "treated" and "control" areas. Consequently, analyses of price data, which rely on a market counterfactual, are able to reveal effects of the ecological disturbance that are obscured in quantity data. Our results are an important step toward quantifying the economic value of reduced upstream nutrient loading in the Mississippi Basin and are broadly applicable to other coupled human-natural systems.hypoxia | fisheries | coupled human-natural systems | bioeconomics | spatial dynamics F ertilizer use in coastal watersheds and agriculture intensification contribute to a growing incidence of coastal ecological disturbances (1-4). Of particular concern is coastal hypoxia [dissolved oxygen (DO) ≤ 2 mg/L] and potential impacts on marine fauna (1-4). The Western Hemisphere's largest area of seasonal hypoxia is in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM; >20,000 km 2 ) and overlaps with what was once the highest value fishery in the United States (brown shrimp) (www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/commercial-fisheries/index) (5-7). Because controlling nutrient runoff upstream is costly, identifying and quantifying economic benefits downstream, including benefits to commercial fisheries, are essential for policy analysis (www.st. nmfs.noaa.gov/commercial-fisheries/index) (8-10). Although studies demonstrate ecological effects of hypoxia, economic consequences have not been established in this fishery.GoM brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus) provide a unique opportunity to study the economic effects of hypoxia. First, the fishery is concentrated in regions of the GoM that become hypoxic seasonally (7) (SI Appendix, Figs. S1 and S2). Second, the temporal dynamics of brown shrimp and hypoxia match. Within season, harvest and hy...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Seafood prices reveal impacts of a major ecological disturbance

Smith

Øglend

Kirkpatrick

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…pdf, accessed 13 May 2013). Regarding seafood, Wakamatsu and Miyata used market data from Tsukiji Market [10], and found that radioactivity levels (although not from Fukushima) have negatively affected the cod market in Japan. However, to date, no research has been conducted on consumers' preferences for Fukushima seafood, because Fukushima fisheries have been suspended.…”

Section: Social Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Reputational damage and the Fukushima disaster: an analysis of seafood in Japan

Wakamatsu

Miyata

2017

Fish Sci

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“…Counterfactual prediction-based synthetic control approaches are increasingly used to infer temporal causal impacts in a wide range of policy evaluation contexts including public health (Bruhn et al, 2017), water conservation initiatives (Schmitt et al, 2018) and radioactive spill impacts on seafood markets (Wakamatsu & Miyata, 2016). synthetic control approach is an extension of the DiD approach.…”

Section: Synthetic Control Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Area‐based management of blue water fisheries: Current knowledge and research needs

et al. 2021

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The pelagic fisheries beyond the continental shelves are currently managed with a range of tools largely based on regulating effort or target catch. These tools comprise both static and dynamic area-based approaches to include gear limitations, closed areas and bycatch limits. There are increasing calls for additional area-based interventions, particularly expansion of marine protected areas, with many now advocating closing 30% of the oceans to fishing. In this paper, we review the objectives, methods and successes of area-based management of blue water fisheries across objectives related to food production and environmental, social and economic impacts. We also consider the methods used to evaluate the performance of area-based regulations andThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

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Do Radioactive Spills from the Fukushima Disaster Have Any Influence on the Japanese Seafood Market?

Cited by 16 publications

References 23 publications

Seafood prices reveal impacts of a major ecological disturbance

Seafood prices reveal impacts of a major ecological disturbance

Reputational damage and the Fukushima disaster: an analysis of seafood in Japan

Area‐based management of blue water fisheries: Current knowledge and research needs

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