Assessing risks of cumulative impacts on the Barents Sea ecosystem and its services

The Barents Sea is changing rapidly due to a warmer ocean climate and reduced ice cover. The change was especially large in the decade 2004-2014. Subarctic species such as cod and haddock expanded their habitats to also include the northern Barents Sea, since the warmer climate here provides more favorable conditions for them than before. Arctic species, on the other hand, were negatively affected by these changes and are in decline. At the same time, less sea ice opens up for increased human activity. The condition in the Barents Sea is now more “normal”, but with climate change the “abnormal” situation may become the one that dominates. Natural conditions are then in place for both fisheries, maritime transport and petroleum activities to expand their activity. This increases the need for scientifically based management. In BarentsRISK, we have established a framework for assessing risk to different parts of the ecosystem from multiple interacting factors related to climate variation and change, fisheries, petroleum activity, and maritime transport, while taking into account interactions between species in the food web. We identify the most critical current and new future influencing factors, with extensive participation of stakeholders from different business sectors as well as researchers from both natural- and social science. BarentsRISK is structured so that we first looked at qualitative relationships using surveys among academic experts and conceptual models developed together with an interest (stakeholder) group from environmental, fisheries, petroleum and maritime management, the fisheries and petroleum industries, and WWF. In a scientific article published in 2023, we specifically look at how a flexible approach, open to different perspectives, can provide results to help prioritize within ecosystem-based management and address challenges related to management plans across sectors with different underlying interests. The project’s conceptual models summarize what we know about effects on ecosystem components from different drivers and impacts and consequences for ecosystem services and social benefits. This was further developed, including in a physical workshop in November 2022, and communicated to and discussed with the project’s interest group in an online meeting in December 2022. In an article in collaboration with another project, we analyze data on fisheries activity circum-polar in (sub) arctic. We show that trawling dominates arctic fisheries and that this activity has rapidly expanded into arctic shelf areas, which were previously protected by extensive ice cover, in response to sea ice loss. We use this further to model the development of trawling activity under a climate scenario and use the model to identify areas with high risk of increased trawling and estimate the amount of trawling that is avoided due to recently established fisheries protection zones. The project also focuses on more quantitative relationships, i.e. various mathematical and statistical models to explain interactions between influencing factors and different parts of the ecosystem. The methods we use include food web analysis, statistical analysis of variation in space and time of physical variables and different species and human influencing factors and studies of different scenarios using the dynamic ecosystem model NoBa Atlantis. A PhD fellow employed on the project at HI received additional funding from the Research Council to collaborate with the world’s foremost expert on the Atlantis model and had a fruitful stay in Australia, where she learned a lot of new things that will be applied in the last part of the doctoral thesis.

In the high latitude Barents Sea ecosystem, a warming ocean climate and ice retreat is changing species distributions and productivity at a rapid pace, altering ecosystem structure, function and vulnerability to increasing and expanding human impacts. In this applied project, we propose to establish the first unifying framework for risk assessment of multiple, interacting pressures related to climate warming, fisheries, petroleum, transportation and invasive species in the Barents Sea, also taking into account indirect, food web interactions. The project builds on the Ecological Risk Assessments (ERAs) framework and includes a structured approach to i) identifying the most critical present and emerging future pressures, with extensive stakeholder involvement across sectors and with natural and social scientists, ii) qualitative and quantitative approaches used in a hierarchical manner to assess current and future risks of cumulative impacts on ecosystem components, structure and functioning, including antagonistic and synergistic interaction effects, iii) efficiently and transparently communicate risks and associated uncertainties, and iv) determining how these ecological risks are linked to ecosystem services provided by the Barents Sea, and thus to societal aspects important for management and policy makers. Interaction between natural and social scientists and coproduction with stakeholders from management agencies and industry through the whole project is an essential part of Barents-Risk. Stakeholders will be actively involved in all parts of the ERA, including deciding the form and content of output products (e.g., web based services, interactive maps) to support the development of ecosystem-based approach to cross sector management of the Barents Sea. Project and WP leaders have proven records of publication in high level journals, both within ecology, management and economy. Hence, we anticpate excellent scientific output from Barents-Risk.