Chris J. Harvey

The need for ecosystem‐based fisheries management (EBFM) is growing more urgent as environmental changes, species shifts, new ocean uses, and other factors force oceans toward novel states. In the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) developed an EBFM Policy in 2016, accompanied by a Road Map of 49 action items, to support marine ecosystem‐based management and conservation of fisheries, habitats, and protected species under U.S. federal jurisdiction. In 2024, NOAA Fisheries updated its EBFM Policy and Road Map and formed a team of science and policy experts to review progress and derive lessons learned during the first Road Map iteration. Four key lessons emerged: (1) progress toward EBFM in the U.S. has been substantial; (2) greater coordination could further enhance progress; (3) more effort is required to link science to management activities; and (4) human dimensions need greater integration throughout EBFM implementation. Enabling factors for progress on the Road Map included: champions at both the leadership and staff levels; use of participatory processes; motivation driven by ecosystem shocks and threats; and leveraging existing processes and frameworks. The updated EBFM Road Map supports historic and ongoing efforts to implement U.S. laws through improved coordination, integration, and knowledge exchange and can help to address many urgent challenges facing U.S. marine fisheries, habitats, and protected resources.

Offshore wind energy (OWE) planning is occurring alongside efforts to understand the potential effects of long-term environmental variability and climate change on social-ecological systems. To minimize potential conflicts between current and new ocean-use sectors, there is a need to identify tradeoffs between OWE development and other ocean users under dynamic environmental conditions. Here, we present a framework for evaluating the risk of groundfish fisheries being displaced from traditional fishing grounds by the designation of proposed OWE areas (OWEAs) and how risk may be affected by climate change impacts on targeted species. Specifically, we use fishery-dependent catch data from three groundfish fisheries to derive annual fishing “footprints” for port groups along the U.S. West Coast (1994–2020). We calculate the historical risk of these fleets being displaced from fishing grounds that have been proposed as sites for OWE development using an exposure-vulnerability framework. Risk varies across fishing fleets, but generally corresponds to a fleet’s target species and distance to proposed OWEAs. We then use existing climate-driven projections to map the spatial distribution of targeted species biomass for each of the three fisheries from 2020 to 2100. In some cases, future target species biomass indices have higher predicted values inside proposed OWEAs compared to outside OWEAs, indicating that incorporating climate change impacts may increase the perceived risk of displacement for these fleets. These results indicate that tradeoffs between commercial fishing and OWE development will not be fully understood unless the effects of climate change are incorporated into marine spatial planning and efforts to develop appropriately scaled mitigation measures.

Understanding the dynamic relationship between marine species and their changing environments is critical for ecosystem based management, particularly as coastal ecosystems experience rapid change (e.g., general warming, marine heat waves). In this paper, we present a novel statistical approach to robustly estimate and track the thermal niches of 30 marine fishes along the west coast of North America. Leveraging three long-term fisheries-independent datasets, we use spatiotemporal modeling tools to capture spatiotemporal variation in species densities. Estimates from our models are then used to generate species-specific estimates of thermal niches through time at several scales: coastwide and for each of the three regions. By synthesizing data across regions and time scales, our modeling approach provides insights into how these marine species may be tracking or responding to changes in temperature. While we did not find evidence of consistent temperature-density relationships among regions, we are able to contrast differences across species: Dover sole and shortspine thornyhead have relatively broad thermal niche estimates that are static over time, whereas several semi-pelagic species (e.g., Pacific hake, walleye pollock) have niches that are both becoming warmer over time and simultaneously narrowing. This illustrates how several economically and ecologically valuable species are facing contrasting fates in a changing environment, with potential consequences for fisheries and ecosystems. Our modeling approach is flexible and can be easily extended to other species or ecosystems, as well as other environmental variables. Results from these models may be broadly useful to scientists, managers, and stakeholders—monitoring trends in the direction and variability of thermal niches may be useful in identifying species that are more susceptible to environmental change, and results of this work can form quantitative metrics that may be included in climate vulnerability assessments, estimation of dynamic essential fish habitat, and assessments of climate risk posed to fishing communities.

Understanding the dynamic relationship between marine species and their changing environments is critical for ecosystem based management, particularly as coastal ecosystems experience rapid change (e.g., general warming, marine heat waves). In this paper, we present a novel statistical approach to robustly estimate and track the thermal niches of 30 marine fishes along the west coast of North America. Leveraging three long-term fisheries-independent datasets, we use spatiotemporal modeling tools to capture spatiotemporal variation in species densities. Estimates from our models are then used to generate species-specific estimates of thermal niches through time at several scales: coastwide and for each of the three regions. By synthesizing data across regions and time scales, our modeling approach provides insights into how these marine species may be tracking or responding to changes in temperature. While we did not find evidence of consistent temperature-density relationships among regions, we are able to contrast differences across species: Dover sole and shortspine thornyhead have relatively broad thermal niche estimates that are static over time, whereas several semi-pelagic species (e.g., Pacific hake, walleye pollock) have niches that are both becoming warmer over time and simultaneously narrowing. This illustrates how several economically and ecologically valuable species are facing contrasting fates in a changing environment, with potential consequences for fisheries and ecosystems. Our modeling approach is flexible and can be easily extended to other species or ecosystems, as well as other environmental variables. Results from these models may be broadly useful to scientists, managers, and stakeholders — monitoring trends in the direction and variability of thermal niches may be useful in identifying species that are more susceptible to environmental change, and results of this work can form quantitative metrics that may be included in climate vulnerability assessments, estimation of dynamic essential fish habitat, and assessments of climate risk posed to fishing communities.

Climate change is expected to alter harmful algal bloom (HAB) dynamics in marine and freshwater systems around the world, with some regions already experiencing significant increases in HAB events. There has been considerable investment of effort to identify, characterize, track, and predict the direction and magnitude of HAB response to climate variability and change. In comparison, far less effort has been devoted to understanding how human communities respond to HABs in a changing world. Harmful algal blooms alter social-ecological interactions and can have negative consequences for human well-being. This is especially true for fishing communities because their resource-based economies operate at the interface of the natural environment and society. Identifying the components of human well-being that are most affected by HABs can advance ecosystem assessment and inform choices about climate-ready management strategies in and across complex systems. This study uses a framework for considering human well-being in management contexts to explore the effects of HABs of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. on US West Coast fishing communities. We find that HABs, and the management strategies to address them, affect almost every domain of human well-being; however, less than half of these effects meet the criteria to be considered by federal disaster response and recovery programs that provide relief to impacted communities. Moreover, much of the data used to measure the effects of HABs that are eligible for consideration by these programs are not consistently collected, which could lead to inequitable access to disaster relief. Our analysis provides a starting point for communities to develop a suite of high-quality indicators of human well-being to evaluate HAB impacts, assess the effectiveness of management actions and the equity of management outcomes, and track adaptation to system dynamics and external pressures.

From fishers to farmers, people across the planet who rely directly upon natural resources for their livelihoods and well-being face extensive impacts from climate change. However, local- and regional-scale impacts and associated risks can vary geographically, and the implications for development of adaptation pathways that will be most effective for specific communities are underexplored. To improve this understanding at relevant local scales, we developed a coupled social-ecological approach to assess the risk posed to fishing fleets by climate change, applying it to a case study of groundfish fleets that are a cornerstone of fisheries along the U.S. West Coast. Based on the mean of three high-resolution climate projections, we found that more poleward fleets may experience twice as much local temperature change as equatorward fleets, and 3–4 times as much depth displacement of historical environmental conditions in their fishing grounds. Not only are they more highly exposed to climate change, but some poleward fleets are >10x more economically-dependent on groundfish. While we show clear regional differences in fleets’ flexibility to shift to new fisheries via fisheries diversification (‘adapt in-place’) or shift their fishing grounds in response to future change through greater mobility (‘adapt on-the-move’), these differences do not completely mitigate the greater exposure and economic dependence of more poleward fleets. Therefore, on the U.S. West Coast more poleward fishing fleets may be at greater overall risk due to climate change, in contrast to expectations for greater equatorward risk in other parts of the world. Through integration of climatic, ecological, and socio-economic data, this case study illustrates the potential for widespread implementation of risk assessment at scales relevant to fishers, communities, and decision makers. Such applications will help identify the greatest opportunities to mitigate climate risks through pathways that enhance flexibility and other dimensions of adaptive capacity.

From fishers to farmers, people across the planet who rely directly upon natural resources for their livelihoods and well-being face extensive impacts from climate change. However, local- and regional-scale impacts and associated risks can vary geographically, and the implications for development of adaptation pathways that will be most effective for specific communities are underexplored. To improve this understanding at relevant local scales, we developed a coupled social-ecological approach to assess the risk posed to fishing fleets by climate change, applying it to a case study of bottom trawl groundfish fleets that are a cornerstone of fisheries along the U.S. West Coast. Based on the mean of three high-resolution climate projections, we found that more poleward fleets may experience twice as much local temperature change as equatorward fleets, and 3-4 times as much depth displacement of historical environmental conditions in their fishing grounds. Not only are they more highly exposed to climate change, but more poleward fleets can be >10x more economically-dependent on groundfish. While we show clear regional differences in fleets’ flexibility to shift to new fisheries (‘adapt in-place’) or shift their fishing grounds in response to future change (‘adapt on-the-move’), these differences do not completely mitigate the greater exposure and economic dependence of poleward fleets. Therefore, on the U.S. West Coast more poleward fishing fleets may be at greater overall risk due to climate change, in contrast to expectations for greater equatorward risk in other parts of the world. Through integration of climatic, ecological, and socio-economic data, this case study illustrates the potential for widespread implementation of risk assessment at scales relevant to fishers, communities, and decision makers. Such applications will help identify the greatest opportunities to mitigate climate risks through adaptation that enhances mobility and diversification in fisheries.

Climate change drives species distribution shifts, affecting the availability of resources people rely upon for food and livelihoods. These impacts are complex, manifest at local scales, and have diverse effects across multiple species. However, for wild capture fisheries, current understanding is dominated by predictions for individual species at coarse spatial scales. We show that species-specific responses to localized environmental changes will alter the collection of co-occurring species within established fishing footprints along the U.S. West Coast. We demonstrate that availability of the most economically valuable, primary target species is highly likely to decline coastwide in response to warming and reduced oxygen concentrations, while availability of the most abundant, secondary target species will potentially increase. A spatial reshuffling of primary and secondary target species suggests regionally heterogeneous opportunities for fishers to adapt by changing where or what they fish. Developing foresight into the collective responses of species at local scales will enable more effective and tangible adaptation pathways for fishing communities.

Projecting the future distributions of commercially and ecologically important species has become a critical approach for ecosystem managers to strategically anticipate change, but large uncertainties in projections limit climate adaptation planning. Although distribution projections are primarily used to understand the scope of potential change—rather than accurately predict specific outcomes—it is nonetheless essential to understand where and why projections can give implausible results and to identify which processes contribute to uncertainty. Here, we use a series of simulated species distributions, an ensemble of 252 species distribution models, and an ensemble of three regional ocean climate projections, to isolate the influences of uncertainty from earth system model spread and from ecological modeling. The simulations encompass marine species with different functional traits and ecological preferences to more broadly address resource manager and fishery stakeholder needs, and provide a simulated true state with which to evaluate projections. We present our results relative to the degree of environmental extrapolation from historical conditions, which helps facilitate interpretation by ecological modelers working in diverse systems. We found uncertainty associated with species distribution models can exceed uncertainty generated from diverging earth system models (up to 70% of total uncertainty by 2100), and that this result was consistent across species traits. Species distribution model uncertainty increased through time and was primarily related to the degree to which models extrapolated into novel environmental conditions but moderated by how well models captured the underlying dynamics driving species distributions. The predictive power of simulated species distribution models remained relatively high in the first 30 years of projections, in alignment with the time period in which stakeholders make strategic decisions based on climate information. By understanding sources of uncertainty, and how they change at different forecast horizons, we provide recommendations for projecting species distribution models under global climate change.