Climate and Fisheries: Evolving our Science Advice

NOAA Fisheries is responsible for managing marine fisheries within the U.S. exclusive economic zone. Our work is guided by two core mandates: ensure the productivity and sustainability of fisheries through science-based decision-making and compliance with regulations, and recover and conserve protected resources. Recognizing that social vulnerability and resilience influence a community’s ability to respond and adapt to change, our response needs to be both holistic and region-specific. Rapid climate-driven changes in our oceans – and the resulting shift from stationary to non-stationary systems – have evolved the study of the impacts of these changes on our marine resources from “nice to know” to “need to know”.  In this seminar, I will describe how, over the next five years and building on NOAA’s Climate Ready Fisheries, we aim to improve our capacity for forecasting fishery system dynamics and thereby provide the needed science and socioeconomic advice that will lead to more robust management responses in our effort to increase our coastal communities’ resilience.

Host: Dr. Carol Arnosti