Global climate change: Policy implications for fisheries
Several government agencies are evaluating policy options for addressing global climate change. These include planning for anticipated effects and developing mitigation options where feasible if climate does change as predicted. For fisheries resources, policy questions address effects on international, national, and regional scales. Climate change variables expected to affect inland and offshore fisheries include temperature rise, changes in the hydrologic cycle, alterations in nutrient fluxes, and reduction and relocation of spawning and nursery habitat. These variables will affect resources at all levels of biological organization, including the genetic, organism, population, and ecosystem levels. In this context, changes in primary productivity, species composition in the food-web, migration, invasions, synchrony in biological cycles, shifts in utilization of niches, and problems of larvae entrainment in estuaries have been identified. Maintaining ecosystem robustness (i.e., high biodiversity) is another component of the problem. Action requires establishing priorities for information needs, determining appropriate temporal and spatial scales at which to model effects, and accounting for interactive changes in physical and biological cycles. A policy response can be derived when these results are integrated with social needs and human population constraints.
- Research Organization:
- Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, OR (United States). Environmental Research Lab.
- OSTI ID:
- 5548557
- Report Number(s):
- PB-91-171611/XAB; EPA-600/J-90/405
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Pub. in Fisheries, v15 n6 p33-38 Nov/Dec 90. Prepared in cooperation with NSI Technology Services Corp., Corvallis, OR., and Oregon State Univ., Corvallis
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
CLIMATES
VARIATIONS
FISHERIES
PRODUCTIVITY
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
GLOBAL ASPECTS
AIR POLLUTION
AIR-WATER INTERACTIONS
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
FOOD CHAINS
FRESH WATER
HABITAT
ECOSYSTEMS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
WATER
540120* - Environment
Atmospheric- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)
290300 - Energy Planning & Policy- Environment
Health
& Safety