Stock size matters more than vessel size: The fuel efficiency of Swedish demersal trawl fisheries 2002–2010

Fisheries management determines how much of each stock can be landed when, where and how fishing is permitted. It has been identified to strongly influence the environmental performance of the fishing industry, including fuel use. As fuel data for fisheries is scarce, especially on a detailed level, the aim of this study was to develop an approach for utilizing fleet-wide fuel data to estimate the fuel use of individual fisheries and mapping how fuel efficiency in Swedish fisheries is influenced by management. Swedish demersal trawl fisheries were studied between 2002 and 2010. Results show that the overall fuel efficiency has improved and interesting patterns between different fisheries and vessel sizes emerged. The difference in fuel efficiency per kilo landing between large and small trawlers was generally small, unless catch capacity was lowered e.g. by selective grids. Stock rebuilding was shown to be highly important for fuel efficiency, as fuel use was inversely correlated to the biomass of eastern Baltic cod. However, rebuilding can also lead to trade-offs e.g. in the case of selective trawling, where protection of depleted stocks comes at the cost of higher fuel intensity per landing. Finally, tax exemption of fuel use in fisheries was shown to maintain inefficient fisheries. These results could be used to reduce overall environmental impacts of fishing further by incorporating fuel use as an additional aspect into the fisheries management system.

[1]  Anna Cheilari,et al.  Effects of the fuel price crisis on the energy efficiency and the economic performance of the European Union fishing fleets , 2013 .

[2]  D. Valentinsson,et al.  Species-selective Nephrops trawling: Swedish grid experiments , 2008 .

[3]  A. Hospido,et al.  Life cycle environmental impacts of Spanish tuna fisheries , 2005 .

[4]  P. Tyedmers,et al.  Fuel use and greenhouse gas emission implications of fisheries management: the case of the new england atlantic herring fishery , 2010 .

[5]  R. Parker.  Review of life cycle assessment research on products derived from fisheries and aquaculture , 2012 .

[6]  Heleen Bartelings,et al.  The 2011 Annual Economic Report on the EU Fishing Fleet (STECF-11-16) , 2011 .

[7]  T. Pitcher,et al.  Management Effectiveness of the World's Marine Fisheries , 2009, PLoS biology.

[8]  Francesco De Carlo,et al.  Energy performance evaluation of fishing vessels by fuel mass flow measuring system , 2011 .

[9]  B. Mattsson,et al.  Life Cycle assessment of frozen cod fillets including fishery-specific environmental impacts , 2003 .

[10]  Maria Teresa Moreira,et al.  Environmental assessment of the Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) season in the Basque Country. Increasing the timeline delimitation in fishery LCA studies , 2011 .

[11]  P. Tyedmers,et al.  Skippers, spotters and seiners: Analysis of the "skipper effect" in US menhaden (Brevoortia spp.) purse-seine fisheries , 2007 .

[12]  R. Martini.  Fuel Tax Concessions in the Fisheries Sector , 2012 .

[13]  D. Pauly,et al.  Fueling Global Fishing Fleets , 2005, Ambio.

[14]  Sara Hornborg,et al.  Trophic indicators in fisheries: a call for re-evaluation , 2013, Biology Letters.

[15]  Dentes De Carvalho Gaspar Natacha,et al.  Legal notice , 1990 .

[16]  P. Fréon,et al.  Life cycle assessment of fisheries: A review for fisheries scientists and managers , 2013 .

[17]  J. Manderson,et al.  Ecosystem-based fisheries management in the Northwest Atlantic , 2011 .

[18]  Harald Ellingsen,et al.  Energy consumption in the Norwegian fisheries , 2009 .

[19]  Gumersindo Feijoo,et al.  Inclusion of discard assessment indicators in fisheries life cycle assessment studies. Expanding the use of fishery-specific impact categories , 2012, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[20]  C. Cleveland,et al.  Resource scarcity, energy use and environmental impact: A case study of the New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA, fisheries , 1993 .

[21]  Almudena Hospido,et al.  Best practices in life cycle assessment implementation in fisheries. Improving and broadening environmental assessment for seafood production systems , 2012 .

[22]  Mikkel Thrane,et al.  LCA of Danish Fish Products. New methods and insights (9 pp) , 2006 .

[23]  Friederike Ziegler,et al.  Environmental life cycle assessment of Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) caught along the Swedish west coast by creels and conventional trawls—LCA methodology with case study , 2008 .

[24]  Harald Ellingsen,et al.  The Carbon Footprint of Norwegian Seafood Products on the Global Seafood Market , 2013 .

[25]  Peter Tyedmers,et al.  Fisheries and Energy Use , 2004 .

[26]  Daniel Pauly,et al.  Fisheries Impacts on North Atlantic Ecosystems : Catch, Effort and National/Regional Data Sets , 2001 .

[27]  Jonathan A. Anticamara,et al.  Global marine yield halved as fishing intensity redoubles , 2013 .

[28]  G. Søvik,et al.  The Norwegian Fishery for Northern Shrimp (Pandalus borealis) in Skagerrak and the Norwegian Deep (ICES Divisions IIIa and IVa east), 1970-2010 , 2010 .

[29]  F. Ziegler,et al.  By-Catch Impacts in Fisheries: Utilizing the IUCN Red List Categories for Enhanced Product Level Assessment in Seafood LCAs , 2013, Environmental Management.

[30]  Bo Sølgaard Andersen,et al.  Effects of fishing effort allocation scenarios on energy efficiency and profitability: an individual-based model applied to Danish fisheries. , 2010 .

[31]  Mikkel Thrane,et al.  Energy Consumption in the Danish Fishery: Identification of Key Factors , 2004 .

[32]  Sara Hornborg,et al.  Integrated environmental assessment of fisheries management: Swedish Nephrops trawl fisheries evaluated using a life cycle approach , 2012 .