Marine heatwaves and extreme weather: effects on exploited ecosystems and risks for fisheries

How ocean weather extremes affect food webs and the risks posed to fisheries is unknown.

This lack prevents development of solutions for fishery businesses, actors and management to adapt to extreme weather events, such as heatwaves or storms.We aim to create a food-web based analysis and knowledge of the integrated risks that extreme marine weather events (EMWEs) pose to fisheries, and support development of measures to adapt fisheries management to mitigate these risks.

Our interdisciplinary project combines time series analyses, ecological heatwave experiments, food web modelling, economic analyses, risk scenario modelling of management options and dialogue to co-create novel climate risk analyses for Baltic Sea fisheries and decision-support for management for adapting to such risks.

We will answer:How do marine heatwaves alter Baltic Sea food webs?What risks do these and other EMWEs pose to Baltic Sea fisheries?What economic consequences do these combined risks to fisheries entail?How to support decision making for fisheries management and -businesses to increase the capacity to adapt to climate change and marine weather extremes?Collaborating with five key stakeholder organizations in commercial and recreational fisheries, of archipelago residents, and two government agencies, we will provide the first climate risk analysis of Swedish fisheries in response to extreme weather, and first ever created together with the stakeholders affected by the risks.