Abstract
The formation of hypoxic water zones in marine ecosystems across the world is a growing concern among marine scientists and regulatory agencies that focus on marine resource management. Nutrient-rich water with excessive nitrogen content is widely recognized as a key anthropogenic cause for the development of hypoxic zones. While the dissolved oxygen level indicates the presence of current hypoxic water conditions, the aquatic nitrogen concentration indicates the possibility of formation of hypoxic zones in future time periods. Hence, understanding the effects of both these variables on current and future fish population is important for improved water quality management and sustainability of marine resources. In this paper, we estimate the temporal effects of these two key variables on lobster harvest from three contiguous fishing zones in the Long Island Sound that vary in ambient water quality. We find there is no contemporaneous effect of these variables on harvest in both the hypoxic fishing zone and the two non-hypoxic zones. While there is some evidence of lagged effects of these variables on harvest, no systematic pattern emerges in these effects that distinguishes the hypoxic fishing zone with non-hypoxic zones.
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Notes
The map with the station locations and the data for all environmental variables were provided by Matthew Lyman at CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The fisheries data were provided by Matthew Gates at CT DEEP. The authors are very grateful for the support they received from CT DEEP.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for sharing the data for the empirical analysis with us. We also thank our anonymous referees for their valuable feedback.
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Mukherjee, Z., Dey, D.K. & Gupta, R. Time series effects of dissolved oxygen and nitrogen on Long Island Sound lobster harvest. Nat Hazards 84, 1849–1858 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2522-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2522-7