Latest Skimmer Articles

Editor’s note: We’ve all read about how ocean noise can harm marine mammals. New research reveals that it can have profound impacts on lower trophic levels as well, with likely consequences for marine ecosystems. Catch up on the latest research with this month’s Skimmer.

A little background on sound in the ocean

• As we get started discussing how ocean noise affects marine animals (and marine ecosystems), there are some critical points about sound in the ocean to keep in mind:
   
  • Sound is a “compression wave that causes particles of matter to vibrate as it transfers from one to the next.” How loud or soft a sound is perceived to be is a function of the amplitude or intensity of the wave^[1] and the receiver’s hearing. Sound waves with higher amplitudes/intensities are perceived to be “louder” than sound waves with lower amplitudes/intensities.
     
  • Sound travels a lot faster and farther in seawater than through the air. Sound travels nearly five times faster in seawater than on land (1500 vs 340 m/s) and can travel hundreds to thousands of kilometers in seawater versus tens of kilometers on land. As a rule, lower frequency sounds travel farther than high frequency sounds because lower frequency sound waves lose energy (“dissipate”) more slowly. In addition, higher amplitude/more intense/louder sounds travel farther than lower amplitude/less intense/softer sounds because they have more energy to start with.
     
  • In the ocean, vision is limited to tens of meters at best, and sense of touch even less than that, while smell and taste are greatly dependent on local environmental conditions such as water currents. Consequently, many marine animals – including invertebrates – use sound as their principal way of sensing the environment. They use sound for finding food, finding mates, locating offspring and other community members, finding appropriate habitat, avoiding predators, navigating, and more.
     
  • Sound in the ocean has two components: a pressure component that acts in all directions at once and a particle motion component that has directionality. While mammals primarily sense the pressure component of sound, marine fish and invertebrates primarily sense the particle motion component of sound.
     
  • The “silent oceans” are anything but silent. The oceans have rich natural soundscapes from both abiotic and biotic sources (e.g., rain, waves, earthquakes, animal vocalizations). Sound does not travel well across the ocean-atmosphere boundary, however, giving outside observers the false impression of relative silence.
     
  • “Noise” is simply sound that is unwanted, unpleasant, and/or disruptive. If you think back to that list of things that marine animals use sound for (i.e., finding food, finding mates, locating offspring and other community members, finding appropriate habitat, avoiding predators, navigating, and more), manmade sounds have the potential to disrupt all of them. Given that manmade sound has intensified over a very short period of time in evolutionary terms (50-100 years) and most animals have not had time to adapt to these new sounds, it is assumed that most anthropogenic sound in the ocean is indeed “noise” to marine animals.

• Nearly 60% of ocean experiencing significantly increasing cumulative impact
• Marine wildlife populations decreased by half in past 40 years
• High European fisheries profits linked to sustainable practices
• US’s first large-scale offshore wind development held up by fisheries concerns
• Top ocean science research priorities for sustainable development identified
• New research brings spatial analysis approach to coastal adaptation planning
• New navigator helps practitioners find ecosystem-based climate adaptation tools and methods
• New toolkit assists with climate adaptation of coastal and marine protected areas
• Reports provide information and decision support for coral reef interventions
• Global atlas of surface ocean carbon-dioxide observations available
• New interactive map connects US home values and risk of sea-level-rise-related flooding
• New website compiles resources for deep-ocean stewardship
• Marine planning and management trainings added to database
• Responses request for surveys on US marine and coastal adaptation and capacity development for ocean projects

Editor’s note: Heather Welch is a research associate with the University of California at Santa Cruz and the (US) NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center’s Environmental Research Division. The Skimmer spoke with her about her research, which focuses on understanding and planning for the spatial and temporal dynamics of large-scale marine processes.
 

The Skimmer: We last covered dynamic ocean management and dynamic ocean management tools in 2014. Can you tell us a bit about how the field has progressed since then?

One area of progress is that dynamic ocean management is now better located within the larger field of dynamic management, allowing us to borrow concepts and methodologies from more established disciplines. Weather science has been developing dynamic management tools such as weather forecasts and hurricane forecast tracks for over a century. While on land, established dynamic management tools track floods, wildfires, and disease outbreaks. Understanding the parallels between dynamic ocean management and dynamic management in other realms allows us to leverage lessons learned and avoid reinventing the wheel.

Another area of advancement is that dynamic ocean management tools are moving towards producing forecasts. Initially, tools were producing hindcasts and nowcasts, i.e., predicting where species were last month and where species are today, respectively. Now, dynamic ocean management tools are forecasting species distributions days to seasons in advance. For example, the Atlantic Sturgeon Risk Model predicts Atlantic sturgeon habitat one to three days in advance to help fishers avoid the bycatch of these endangered fish. A seasonal forecasting system in the Great Australia Bight predicts the distribution of Southern bluefin tuna several months into the future to help fishers efficiently locate and harvest their target species. These types of forecasts give end-users time to plan ahead for future conditions.

Lastly, dynamic ocean management is moving from single-species tools to multi-species tools that can address greater proportions of biodiversity. Single-species management was a natural starting point for the field, but established methodologies and technological advances now allow for more complex tools. For example, TurtleWatch helps fishers avoid the bycatch of loggerhead and leatherback turtles. On the US west coast, EcoCast helps fishers maintain their target catch of swordfish while avoiding the bycatch of loggerhead turtles, California sea lions, and blue sharks.
 

In case you missed it, last month’s issue of The Skimmer featured original articles:

• Expanding our view of voices that matter: New perspectives on ocean stakeholders. As economies, technologies, and climate shift, it is critical to reexamine our views of who ocean stakeholders are, their relative importance, and how we engage them. Read fascinating new perspectives on ocean stakeholders.
   
• An end to harmful fisheries subsidies may be coming soon – and that could help a marine ecosystem near you. Every year, national governments collectively provide an estimated US$20 billion to their domestic fishing industries in ways that hurt marine ecosystems and many coastal communities. Learn about harmful fisheries subsidies and global efforts to eliminate them.

In recent years, stakeholder engagement has been widely recognized as integral to effective marine conservation, marine ecosystem-based management, and marine spatial planning. There are many different definitions of the term ”stakeholder”, but at its most inclusive, it is any “person, organization, or group with an interest (professional or societal) or an influence on the marine environment or who is influenced directly or indirectly by activities and management decisions.” The list of stakeholders engaged in any marine conservation or management process depends on the context of the specific project, but, in practice, typical stakeholders engaged in marine conservation and management processes include local industries, coastal residents, management agencies, and conservation organizations.

The world is changing rapidly though. New information and technologies, new forms of social interaction (often fostered by social media), increases in tourism around the globe, shifting economies, globalization, global climate change, and other factors make it critical to continually reexamine traditional views of who ocean stakeholders are, their relative importance, and how we engage them.

In this issue of The Skimmer, we feature three recent studies that highlight new (or often underrepresented) voices in ocean management processes, as well as thoughts on how these voices can be brought into decision making for marine ecosystems.

• One of these studies found the value of marine stewardship activities is greater than the revenues from commercial finfish and whale watching activities in the US state of Massachusetts.
• Another study presents the concept of “extra-local ecosystem services” – ecosystem services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems that are distributed beyond the ecosystem itself, including regionally and globally.
• A third study – of place attachment to the Great Barrier Reef – found a community of people with strong attachment to the reef who do not necessarily have ongoing direct experience with it.

Editor’s note: The Slimmer Skimmer is a new feature to give a brief update on a topic critical to marine ecosystem management.

We are starting off our Slimmer Skimmer series with one of fisheries subsidies. The World Trade Organization is currently working to make an end-of-the year deadline (their own, as well as one for the Sustainable Development Goals) to end harmful types of fisheries subsidies. Not all fisheries subsidies are harmful – fisheries management is commonly considered a subsidy, for instance – but the harmful ones encourage overfishing and have substantial negative impacts on marine ecosystems.

Please let us know what you think of this type of feature and if there is anything that you feel we should cover in this format in the future.

So let’s start with a few basics – what are fisheries subsidies?

• Different groups have different definitions of what constitutes a fisheries subsidy. But generally speaking, subsidies are government actions that help the fishing industry increase its income or lower its costs. Examples of fisheries subsidies include fuel subsidies,  income supports, price supports, tax credits, tax exemptions, low-interest loans, loan guarantees, regulatory exemptions, and preferential treatment. Many also consider government funding for fisheries management – including monitoring and enforcement efforts – and free access to fishing areas to be subsidies.
   
• It is estimated that, globally, nations provide ~US$35 billion in subsidies to their fishing industries every year. Some specifics:
   
  • Fuel subsidies and fisheries management are the most common types of subsidies, comprising 22% and 20% of total subsidies respectively. For example, in 2013, China provided ~US$6.5 billion to its fishing industry, almost entirely (94%) as fuel subsidies.
     
  • Regionally, Asian countries provide the most subsidies (beneficial, harmful, and ambiguous) to their fishing industries (43% of the global total) followed by Europe (25% of the global total) and North America (16% of the global total). Japan and China are the highest subsidizing countries (20% each of the global total) with the US coming in a close third.
     
• Fisheries subsidies are considered beneficial, harmful, or ambiguous based on whether they have positive or negative impacts on fisheries resources.
  • Beneficial subsidies promote the growth of fish stocks through conservation and the sustainable management of the resource. They include investments in fisheries science, management, and enforcement.
     
  • Harmful subsidies lead to overcapacity and the overexploitation of stocks. In general, harmful subsidies artificially increase revenues or lower costs for fishers. This puts pressure on poorly managed fish stocks and enables fishing entities to continue fishing in situations that would otherwise be unprofitable. This encourages fishers to stay in the industry and keep fishing when they would otherwise leave/stop. Harmful subsidies include fuel subsidies, boat construction programs, price supports, marketing supports, tax exemptions, and payment of fees for foreign access agreements.
     
  • Ambiguous subsidies are programs that could be harmful or beneficial (or both) depending on the details of the program and the local context. They include fisher assistance programs, vessel buyback programs, and community development programs. For example, vessel buyback programs could lead to fewer boats fishing and reduced fishing capacity as they are generally intended to do. If fishers anticipate that there will be buybacks, however, they may have incentives to overinvest in vessels, leading to an increase in fishing capacity. Another example is unemployment insurance for fishers. An unemployment program could lead to increased safety and reduced effort because fishers do not need to go out in unsafe conditions. If there is a minimum number of fishing days needed to quality for the program, however, the insurance could lead to increased effort and pressure to lengthen the fishing season.
     
• Of the total subsidies provided to fisheries globally, US$20 billion are considered harmful, capacity-enhancing subsidies.
  • Of the major subsidizers (the EU, Japan, China, the US, and Russia), the US is the only entity where beneficial subsidies exceed harmful subsidies. (In fact, in the US, harmful and ambiguous subsidies are less than a quarter of the total subsidies to the industry).

• Draft of new UN Law of the Sea agreement on high seas biodiversity available for review
• Research shows fisheries in different nations highly interconnected by larval transport
• New study predicts every 1°C increase in ocean temperature leads to 5% loss of marine biomass
• Plastics could change physical processes in the ocean
• New report describes key spatial conflicts and solutions in EU waters (Summaries and case studies available here)
• Latvia approves new national marine spatial plan
• Estonia releases draft of new national marine spatial plan
• Wales launches consultation on future of Welsh fisheries and ecosystems after Brexit
• Canada updates federal fishing law
• US provides information on offshore wind leasing strategy
• US NOAA releases annual report on US ocean economy
• US faces $400+ billion in sea level rise adaptation costs (see cost estimates by city, county, state)
• 2019 ocean yearbook provides analysis of current ocean management issues
• Report describes possible scenarios for high seas fisheries under climate change
• Trident underwater drones and spotter buoys available for ocean research and conservation projects
• Apply to attend expense-paid workshop to identify research priorities for shifting marine species

Editor’s Note: From the Archives calls attention to past Skimmer/MEAM articles whose perspectives and insight remain relevant.

Imagine a world where:

• Municipalities proactively restore wetlands and offshore reefs wherever possible to protect their citizens and infrastructure and lower their insurance premiums.
• Small-scale fishers receive insurance payouts immediately after devastating hurricanes so fisheries-dependent communities can start to recover.
• The risks of running an illegal fishing operation rise dramatically because it is impossible to get insurance for the ships involved.

Learn about real-life examples where this is happening as well as other ways insurance can promote sustainable marine ecosystems and marine communities.

“[Ocean plastic] isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is. We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to dispose of it. We know how to recycle.”

--- Ted Siegler, DSM Environmental Services, on building the institutions and systems needed to deal with plastic before it reaches the ocean

Editor’s note: Marine plastic has a profound impact on marine ecosystems – entangling and killing wildlife, spreading disease and non-native species, and even impairing the oceans’ creation of oxygen. Managing marine ecosystems will need to include managing the marine plastic problem. Last month the Skimmer reported on the impacts of marine plastic on the Blue Economy, including on tourism, fishing, and ecosystem services. This month, in the second half of our plastics coverage, we examine which policies to reduce marine plastic seem to work best.

There is an abundance of information out there on how to reduce one’s personal plastic consumption, with the ultimate goal of reducing the amount of plastic that is polluting marine (and terrestrial) ecosystems. There are also numerous great reports (examples here and here) on government and industry interventions for reducing marine plastic pollution. But what do we know about the efficacy and level of impact of these activities? Are we lumping actions which are likely to have relatively little impact on the problem with actions that potentially have huge impacts? Of course, the ideal is to eliminate all plastic pollution – marine and terrestrial – but in this article, we attempt to:

1. Provide perspective (by way of lots of numbers) for what actions are most likely to make the biggest difference in marine plastic pollution
2. Provide information on what has been shown to work to reduce marine plastic pollution.

Editor’s Note: For this article, we interviewed Ekaterina Popova, a global ocean modeller with the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, United Kingdom, about her new article "Ecological connectivity between the areas beyond national jurisdiction and coastal waters: Safeguarding interests of coastal communities in developing countries" published in Marine Policy in June 2019. This research found that coastal regions of some least-developed countries (LDCs) are connected to areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) through larval dispersal and the potential dispersal of pollutants. These findings suggest that protecting ‘source’ areas in the ABNJ could help promote sustainable livelihoods for coastal regions that depend on larval supply from these regions (and could prevent pollutants from these source areas reaching coastal regions.) 

The Skimmer: Can you briefly describe some of the connections between source areas in the ABNJ and coastal regions?

Popova: Our study showed that connectivity between the ABNJ and coastal waters of different countries varies considerably. How tight the connectivity is, depends on the prevailing direction, timescale and variability of ocean currents. Sometimes, the shape of the adjacent Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) also has an effect. The complex ways these various factors interact means that close geographical proximity, or ‘adjacency’, of coastal waters to ABNJ is not always a good indicator of strong connectivity and some countries are much more exposed to the influence of ABNJ than others. The world’s most ABNJ-impacted LDC is the Federal Republic of Somalia. Its strong connectivity is shaped by three powerful currents: the South Equatorial current, the East African coastal current, and the seasonally reversing East Somali current. The most tightly ABNJ-connected stretch of the Somali coastline can be impacted by the upstream ABNJ waters on a time scale of just over a month. In contrast, the Republic of Senegal is one of the world’s least connected LDCs. Its most tightly ABNJ-connected coastline stretch is impacted by upstream ABNJ on a time scale of more than seven months.