Marine capture fisheries already facing multiple challenges due to overfishing, habitat loss and weak management are poorly positioned to cope with new problems stemming from climate change, a new FAO study suggests.
The study, "Climate change implications for fisheries and aquaculture," which includes contributions from experts from around the world, including from the Worldfish Centre, Globec, NACA, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the University of East Anglia, is one of the most comprehensive surveys to date of existing scientific knowledge on the impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture.
Covering some 500 scientific papers, the picture FAO's review paints is one of an already-vulnerable sector facing widespread and often profound changes.
Small island developing states - which depend on fisheries and aquaculture for at least 50 percent of their animal protein intake - are in a particularly vulnerable position.
Inland fisheries - 90 per cent of which are found in Africa and Asia - are also at risk, FAO's study found, threatening the food supply and livelihoods of some of the world's poorest populations.
Fish farming stands to be affected as well. Nearly 65 per cent of aquaculture is inland and concentrated mostly in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, often in the delta areas of major rivers at the mid- to upper levels of tidal ranges. Sea level rise over the next decades will increase upstream salinity, affecting fish farms.
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