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Accounting for overfishing in life cycle assessment: new impact categories for biotic resource use

  • WOOD AND OTHER RENEWABLE RESOURCES
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Abstract

Purpose

Overfishing is a relevant issue to include in all life cycle assessments (LCAs) involving wild caught fish, as overfishing of fish stocks clearly targets the LCA safeguard objects of natural resources and natural ecosystems. Yet no robust method for assessing overfishing has been available. We propose lost potential yield (LPY) as a midpoint impact category to quantify overfishing, comparing the outcome of current with target fisheries management. This category primarily reflects the impact on biotic resource availability, but also serves as a proxy for ecosystem impacts within each stock.

Methods

LPY represents average lost catches owing to ongoing overfishing, assessed by simplified biomass projections covering different fishing mortality scenarios. It is based on the maximum sustainable yield concept and complemented by two alternative methods, overfishing though fishing mortality (OF) and overfishedness of biomass (OB), that are less data-demanding.

Results and discussion

Characterization factors are provided for 31 European commercial fish stocks in 2010, representing 74 % of European and 7 % of global landings. However, large spatial and temporal variations were observed, requiring novel approaches for the LCA practitioner. The methodology is considered compliant with the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) standard in most relevant aspects, although harmonization through normalization and endpoint characterization is only briefly discussed.

Conclusions

Seafood LCAs including any of the three approaches can be a powerful communicative tool for the food industry, seafood certification programmes, and for fisheries management.

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Notes

  1. Readers with non-LCA background are encouraged to view key concept glossary in supplementary information S1a

  2. Readers with non-fisheries biologist background are encouraged to view key concept glossary in supplementary information S1b

  3. Instantaneous fishing mortality (Finst) is the F used and communicated most frequently in fisheries management, e.g., the one given in ICES advice, although it is less intuitive (measured on a log scale) than the annual fishing mortality (Fannual, the proportion harvested each year), which was our input data into the projection function. For example, an instantaneous fishing mortality of 0.5, 1, and 1.5 corresponds to an annual fishing mortality of 39, 63, and 78 %, respectively, of the spawning stock biomass of that stock harvested each year by the fishery.

  4. The cautious LCA practitioner will notice that both parameters B (SSB) and F do vary (slightly) retrospectively for each new stock assessment, since more data are fitted to the assessment time series, increasing the model's accuracy. For example, B regarding 2010 assessed in 2011 can be slightly changed in the 2012 assessment.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ole Eigaard, Ian Vázquez-Rowe, and Sverker Molander for useful comments on this work, which has been funded by the EU FP7 project LC-IMPACT (contract number 243827) and the Swedish Research Council Formas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sustainable Food Production, SIK—The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, 402 29, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Andreas Emanuelsson, Friederike Ziegler & Ulf Sonesson

  2. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, 451 78, Fiskebackskil, Sweden

    Andreas Emanuelsson & Leif Pihl

  3. Department of Aquatic Resources, Institute of Marine Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 453 30, Lysekil, Sweden

    Mattias Sköld

Authors
  1. Andreas Emanuelsson
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  2. Friederike Ziegler
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  3. Leif Pihl
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  4. Mattias Sköld
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  5. Ulf Sonesson
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Andreas Emanuelsson or Friederike Ziegler.

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Responsible editor: Niels Jungbluth

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Emanuelsson, A., Ziegler, F., Pihl, L. et al. Accounting for overfishing in life cycle assessment: new impact categories for biotic resource use. Int J Life Cycle Assess 19, 1156–1168 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-013-0684-z

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