Dear Colleagues,

Marine fisheries and aquaculture play an important role in guaranteeing food security in many countries. They also provide livelihoods and wealth generation opportunities to coastal communities with substantial job opportunities for people in both harvesting and post-harvesting sectors. In addition, these sectors provide considerable economic impacts to other industries and economic sectors through the productive value chain of many countries. Therefore, marine fisheries and aquaculture contribute to national accounts through both direct and indirect economic effects.

However, surging seafood demand due to the increase in the global human population, rising incomes, and consumer desire for seafood pose threats to marine resources. Further, fisheries and aquaculture have already been affected by various existing threats, including pollution, habitat degradation, sedimentation, invasive species, and overfishing. On top of these, climate change is projected to further reduce marine fisheries and aquaculture production.

Increase in human-induced emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere leads to changes in different physical and biogeochemical properties in the ocean. These changes include sea temperature level, oceanic stratification, ocean acidity and loss in oxygen content, salinity, and primary productivity. These changes are projected to affect the biology, phenology, distribution, and abundance of marine species, leading to a decline in global fisheries. The physiology of farm species and potential marine areas that are suitable for the development of marine aquaculture are also affected by climate change. The potential impacts of climate change on fisheries and marine aquaculture would have implications for economics, society, food security, and sustainable seafood production management at both regional and global scales. Understanding these impacts is crucial to the successful development and implementation of effective mitigation and adaptation tools, strategies, and measures for managing fisheries and marine aquaculture under climate change. 

Thus, this Special Issue seeks to understand climate change impacts on the economics of marine fisheries and aquaculture. We invite papers focusing on analyzing the impacts of climate change on the economics and sustainability of marine fisheries and marine aquaculture. Further, papers that advise on potential solutions to climate impacts on economics and sustainable development of fisheries are welcomed.

Dr. Vicky Wing Yee Lam
Dr. Muhammed Oyinlola
Guest Editors

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• Climate change
• Marine fisheries
• Marine aquaculture
• Mariculture
• Fisheries economics
• Sustainable development
• Sustainable management
• Mitigation strategies
• Adaptation strategies
• Climate solutions

Title: The vulnerability of the fisheries sector to climate change in the Mediterranean region
Authors: Nathalie Hilmi, Shekoofeh Farahmand, Mine Cinar, Alain Safa, Juliette Gilloteaux
Affiliation: Department of Environmental Economics, Centre Scientifique De Monaco, Monaco
Abstract: In this paper, we study the impacts of the ecological and socio-economic risks on the fisheries in the Mediterranean region from a solely economic point of view. Our objective is to study the vulnerability of the fisheries sector in the Med Sea to the different risks. In the first section, we analyze the FAO Fishstat data in different countries. We separate the area into three subdivisions due to their different characteristics: Northern Mediterranean countries of Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Malta, Southern Mediterranean countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Eastern Mediterranean countries of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian territories and Cyprus. We then discuss the main environmental risks of warming, ocean acidification, hypoxia, deoxygenation, pollution and habitats loss and socio-economic risks of demography, coastal urban cities, small/industrial fleets, artisanal/recreational fisheries, overfishing, countries’ degree of development, poverty level, jobs related to fisheries to the fisheries in the Mediterranean. In the third section, we study the impacts of those risks on the fishery sector and on the economies of the Mediterranean countries thanks to a vulnerability index and sensitivity analysis. Finally, we suggest some policy recommendations following our analysis of the observed and projected situation of the fisheries in the Mediterranean region.