Estimating the ecological, economic and social impacts of ocean acidification and warming on UK fisheries

© 2016 The Authors. Fish and Fisheries Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Assessments of the combined ecological impacts of ocean acidification and warming (OAW) and their social and economic consequences can help develop adaptive and responsive management strategies in the most sensitive regions. Here, available observational and experimental data, theoretical, and modelling approaches are combined to project and quantify potential effects of OAW on the future fisheries catches and resulting revenues and employment in the UK under different CO2 emission scenarios. Across all scenarios, based on the limited available experimental results considered, the bivalve species investigated were more affected by OAW than the fish species considered, compared with ocean warming alone. Projected standing stock biomasses decrease between 10 and 60%. These impacts translate into an overall fish and shellfish catch decrease of between 10 and 30% by 2020 across all areas except for the Scotland >10m fleet. This latter fleet shows average positive impacts until 2050, declining afterwards. The main driver of the projected decreases is temperature rise (0.5–3.3°C), which exacerbate the impact of decreases in primary production (10–30%) in UK fishing waters. The inclusion of the effect of ocean acidification on the carbon uptake of primary producers had very little impact on the projections of potential fish and shellfish catches (10m fleet and associated industries bearing the majority of the losses