Food potential of continental aquatic ecosystems in China

Abstract

Continental aquatic ecosystems are important sources of the protein for human needs. Assessments of potential food provisioned by aquatic ecosystems can help people better understand how aquatic ecosystems can support human well-beings. In this paper, four power regression models based on environment factors, which affect fishery productivity on basal level, are built to estimate the potential productivity of natural fish in fishable paddy fields, rivers and creeks, lakes, reservoirs and ponds respectively. The data for the assessment include the raster data of solar radiation, vegetation, terrain, temperature, precipitation, soil in 1 km resolution. Population density in 1 km resolution is used to detect the possible fishery investment of aquatic ecosystems. Increasing productivity coefficients, which show the ratios of fishery productivity under investment condition to that of natural condition, are estimated according to fishery investigation of different investment. With the natural fishery productivity and the increasing productivity coefficients, potential food provisioning services of continental aquatic ecosystems are estimated. The outcome of the assessment shows that 35.59 million tons of potential fish per year can be obtained from aquatic ecosystems, which includes 16.27 million tons from fishable paddy fields, 2.09 million tons from rivers and trenches, 4.97 million tons from lakes, and 15.25 tons from reservoirs and ponds.