Pollution Risk and Impact Analysis for the Barents Sea Ecosystem

The Lofoten-Barents Sea (LBS) is Europe's largest fishing ground, with 60% of the catch from this region (mainly cod), being exported to the European Union, and the region sustains the coastal communities of Northern Norway. The strategic importance of LB S ecosystem makes it imperative to establish a kowledge base, which aids in evaluating the risks posed by non-fishing activities (present and future) within the LBS region to the structure, functioning and productivity of the ecosystem. A key contribution to the knowledge base is information about the resilience and cost to the marine ecosystem when fish at egg, larval and post--larval stages are exposed to oil pollution. This is the subject matter of this research proposal. In the first step, the projec t will synthesize existing knowledge from previous projects about potential sources of pollution from non-fishing activities in the LBS ecosystem. Then the project will seek to identify the potential, long/short term, ecosystem effects of an acute oil s pill in the Lofoten Barents Sea (LBS) area, through realistic, cross-disciplinary scenario modeling. The modeling approach will take into consideration the peculiar oceanographic, meteorological and bathymetric conditions , in generating realistic scena rios for the overlap between biota and oil spread. Using exposure information (fish mortality values) derived from laboratory and field data, and collected as part of the project, we shall seek to quantify the short/long-term effects of reduced recruit ment and the projected effect on management rules for key commercial fish stocks. Finally, the project will seek to make inference about the state of the LBS system due to acute oil pollution.