Economic impacts of climate change on fisheries in Norwegian Arctic Waters
The world ocean has warming up, snow and sea ice are melting, glaciers are retreating, sea levels are rising, and seawater is becoming more acidic. All these changes in climate have produced noticeable effects on ecosystems and ecosystem services. It has become more evident that the effects of climate change on fisheries are profound and have displayed in various ways. Scientific findings have suggested that climate change affects fish productivity (abundance) and distribution through changes in migration patterns, reproduction, recruitment, growth, and mortality rates. Consequently, these physical and biological changes have impacts on fishing and well-being of fishing industry or fishers. Some fisheries and fishing industries may become winners while some become losers. Further, the anticipated changes in fishing sector caused by climate change require mitigation and adaptation strategies in order to respond these changes to minimize damages and losses. Economic effects of climate change on fisheries are influenced by a number of factors, including landing values (e.g., catch, size, markets, etc), costs of production (e.g., new investment on technology, travel distance, energy consumption).
Thus, we are looking for one or two Master thesis student(s) to develop their Masters thesis about the economic effects of climate change on fisheries. Potential topics could include:
1) a fishery bioeconomic model combining population dynamics of one or two fish populations and their ecological and economic interaction, and how they are affected by climate change through reproduction, recruitment, growth and mortality, eventually catch and market;
2) what management strategies could be applied to minimize the impact;
3) what mitigation/adaptation could be more economically effective?
Does this sound interesting to you? Contact Dr. Yajie Liu at yajie.liu@ntnu.no