Description: The ability of management strategies to achieve the fishery management goals are impacted by environmental variation and, therefore, also by global climate change. Management strategies can be modified to use environmental data using the "dynamic B 0 " concept, and changing the set of years used to define biomass reference points. Two approaches have been developed to apply management strategy evaluation to evaluate the impact of environmental variation on the performance of management strategies. The "mechanistic approach" estimates the relationship between the environment and elements of the population dynamics of the fished species and makes predictions for population trends using the outputs from global climate models. In contrast, the "empirical approach" examines possible broad scenarios without explicitly identifying mechanisms. Many reviewed studies have found that modifying management strategies to include environmental factors does not improve the ability to achieve management goals much, if at all, and only if the manner in which these factors drive the system is well known. As such, until the skill of stock projection models improves, it seems more appropriate to consider the implications of plausible broad forecasts related to how biological parameters may change in the future as a way to assess the robustness of management strategies, rather than attempting specific predictions per se .

Description:    In recent years, owing to global warming and the rising sea levels, beach nourishment and groin building have been increasingly employed to protect coastal land from shoreline erosion. These actions may degrade beach habitats and reduce biomass and invertebrate density at sites where they were employed. We conducted an eco-environmental evaluation at the Anping artificial beach-nourishment project area. At this site, sand piles within a semi-enclosed spur groin have been enforced by use of eco-engineering concepts since 2003. Four sampling sites were monitored during the study period from July 2002 to September 2008. The environmental impact assessment and biological investigations that we conducted are presented here. The results from this study indicate that both biotic (number of species, number of individual organisms, and Shannon-Wiener diversity) and abiotic parameters (suspended solids, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, dissolved inorganic phosphorus, total phosphorus, total organic carbon, median diameter, and water content) showed significant differences before and after beach engineering construction. Biological conditions became worse in the beginning stages of the engineering but improved after the restoration work completion. This study reveals that the composition of benthic invertebrates changed over the study period, and two groups of organisms, Bivalvia and Gastropoda, seemed to be particularly suitable to this habitat after the semi-enclosed artificial structures completion. Content Type Journal Article Pages 215-236 DOI 10.1007/s13344-011-0019-4 Authors Chun-Han Shih, Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617 China Yi-Yu Kuo, Department of Civil Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, 30010 China Ta-Jen Chu, Department of Leisure and Recreation Management, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu, 30012 China Wen-Chieh Chou, Department of Civil Engineering, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu, 30012 China Wei-Tse Chang, Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617 China Ying-Chou Lee, Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617 China Journal China Ocean Engineering Print ISSN 0890-5487 Journal Volume Volume 25 Journal Issue Volume 25, Number 2

Description: Welcomme, R. L. 2011. An overview of global catch statistics for inland fish. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1751–1756. The reported global inland fish catch passed 10 million tonnes in 2008, after almost linear growth from the early 1950s. The rise coincides with an increasing number of reports of falling catches resulting from environmental degradation. It is thought that catches from inland waters were underreported in the past because of constraints on collecting the relevant data. National approaches to data collection are not generally comparable and their accuracy not usually assessed. National data processing and reporting should be audited, and training undertaken to harmonize these activities. The apparently bigger catches probably result from better reporting of actual catches rather than any increase in the amount of fish landed. Current data are sufficient only for a general overview of global inland catches of fish, rather than for the detailed analysis needed for management, policy formulation, and the valuation of inland fisheries. There is a need for improved approaches to data collection and for historical catches to be corrected to account for changes in methodologies and reporting procedures.

Description: Wigand, L. A., Klinger, T., and Logsdon, M. G. 2013. Patterns in groundfish abundance along the Eastern Bering Sea outer continental margin. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 1181–1197. Place-based management approaches require understanding the spatial arrangement and interaction of elements. To address this need, we explored the utility of spatial-pattern analysis to understand the distribution of groundfish in the Eastern Bering Sea outer continental margin. We divided this region into discrete geomorphological units to explore spatial pattern on a range of scales. We used groundfish catch per unit effort (cpue) trawl survey data collected in four years to quantify spatial autocorrelation. Global statistics indicated that groundfish cpue was dominated by clusters of low values in all years. Local statistics showed that clusters of low values in groundfish cpue were confined to the southern portion of the study area, while clusters of high values varied across the study area. Outliers were most commonly found in close proximity to the shelf–slope break. Our results reveal the existence of spatial dependency in groundfish abundance and demonstrate that spatial analysis can be used to better understand spatial arrangements of these and other living marine resources, and to quantify and validate the local ecological knowledge of resource users. Our results indicate the feasibility of using spatially explicit tools to improve integration and visualization of marine environmental data for purposes of management and conservation.