COFASP - New methodologies for an ecosystem approach to spatial and temporal management of fisheries and aquaculture in coastal areas

The primary goal of the ECOAST project has been to identify, develop and test new methodologies for spatial and temporal management of fisheries and aquaculture in coastal areas. By using the GRID software, ECOAST assessed synergies and conflicts between different human activities in seven case studies across Europe: 1) Adriatic Sea, 2) Ionian Sea, 3) Black Sea, 4) Tyrrhenian Sea, 5) Baltic Sea, 6) Norwegian Fjords and 7) northeast Atlantic Coast (in Portugal). In most of these case studies ECOAST evaluated the impact of fisheries and aquaculture on coastal ecosystems, including essential fish habitats and conservation priority habitats. Regarding fisheries, a tool for scenario evaluation study rating the costs and benefits of alternative coastal marine spatial plans (MSP) has been produced. This tool, DISPLACE, has been expanded to include also other sectors than fisheries (i.e. accounting for the dynamics of the aquaculture production and its revenues, the dynamics of windmill parks energy production, and the footprint of shipping lanes). The tool is developed to be able to project the likely income from fishing activities in different areas and time, and to track the main fisheries economic indicators used to describe national fishing fleet performance in Europe. In this context, DISPLACE now provides scenario-based assessment and projections of the amount of income generated by national fishing fleets over months, quarters and years, as long as national input data are available. Important results have been obtained for the Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea case studies and a paper has already been published. Regarding aquaculture, several evaluations have been done in order to determine local and regional impacts of organic load from aquaculture sites. Several sampling cruises were undertaken at different stages during the production cycle of salmon farms in Norwegian fjords. Similar sampling cruises were carried out in the Adriatic Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Black Sea. This was done in order to quantify possible changes in the release of organic and inorganic material from aquaculture sites and to assess the alterations of the benthic community structure causing possible loss of ecosystem functioning near the selected production sites. The spatial distribution of chemicals was used to track the cumulative-long term versus short term impact of the aquaculture in the surrounding environment. Results have been integrated with the biological responses obtained by exposing collected sediments with representative organisms of the microbenthic community. Identifying novel tools to monitor anthropogenic changes was one of the goals of the ECOAST-project. Although conventional parameters documenting environmental impact are informative, our results show that a direct measure of sediment organic matter reactivity represents a superior discriminator of fish-farm derived organic matter. The results have already been published in two per-reviewed papers. Official management objectives were identified for five case studies (Adriatic Sea, Black Sea, Ionian Sea, Norwegian fjords, and northeast Atlantic coast). Maps showing areas allocated to different sectors were compiled. Identification of spatial and temporal potentials and limitations for the integration of fisheries and aquaculture in coastal areas of the five case studies was carried out through stakeholder consultations using an on-line, map-based questionnaire and workshops. The five case studies differ in the degree of development of the aquaculture sector, from being in its infancy to highly developed. The questionnaire was filled out by stakeholders mainly from the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, but also from management, trade organizations, NGOs, and academic research. Competition over space between fisheries and aquaculture exists in most case study areas. In all areas, there was a general agreement that the fisheries sector will decrease in the future, while the aquaculture sector will increase. This opinion was held also in areas presently totally dominated by fisheries. ECOAST contributed to fisheries and aquaculture sustainability in the different case study areas, and developed and tested innovative tools for zoning, for management of spatial conflicts, and for the assessment of potential environmental impacts. Consultations and thematic workshops were carried out to get stakeholders? opinions on future development and integration of fisheries and aquaculture activities in selected coastal areas.

ECOAST has increased the competence at IMR in InVEST, which is a tool for ecosystem service modelling designed to quantify and map the total amount of a given ecosystem service resulting from different scenarios. The on-line and map-based questionnaire developed as part of the data collection framework for data-poor coastal fisheries has now, in a modified version, been implemented as a tool for data collection on the shrimp fisheries and shrimp stock along the whole Norwegian coast. The on-line and map-based questionnaire developed as part of the data collection of stakeholder perceptions on conflicts and synergies of coastal fisheries and aquaculture may prove useful in future stakeholder surveys on similar questions. The international collaboration established during the almost 4-years long project will be strengthened by the co-operation in writing a peer-review article on the results from the stakeholder survey conducted WP6.

ECOAST aims to identify, develop and test new methodologies for spatial and temporal management of fisheries and aquaculture in coastal areas. The overall approach will assess the impact of fisheries and aquaculture on coastal ecosystems, including essential fish habitats and conservation priority habitats, as well as synergies and conflicts between human activities. Building on previous methodologies and experiences the project will evaluate marine spatial planning in seven coastal case study areas having different ecological and socio-economic characteristics: 1) Adriatic Sea (ADR), 2) Ionian Sea (ION), 3) Black Sea (BLK), 4) Tyrrhenian Sea (TYR), 5) Baltic Sea (BAL), 6) Norwegian Fjords (NOR) and 7) NE Atlantic Coasts (ATL). The project outcomes will produce case specific evaluation of the ecological footprints of aquaculture and fisheries in coastal areas, maps of optimal areas for fisheries and aquaculture, evaluation of compatibility between fisheries, aquaculture and other human activities in coastal areas, as well as implementation of holistic methods and an operational modelling framework to evaluate and predict stakeholder responses to coastal spatial management options covering marine cross sector occupation of space. Several methodologies already exist to assess the impacts on the ecosystem and the socio-economic effects of some spatial management measures, as well as to spatially manage some cross sector marine activities, but none of them integrate all relevant management aspects for coastal areas. Therefore, the holistic methodology will cover in a single system different approaches and management aspects, identifying realistic spatial and temporal potentials and limitations for the integration of fisheries and aquaculture in coastal areas, in order to allow policy makers and stakeholders to evaluate management measures from different points of view and share decisions in a transparent manner on case specific basis.