Over 90 percent of global blue food production faces substantial risks from environmental changes, with leading seafood-producing countries – including China, Norway, and the U.S. – running the highest risks, according to a new study.
Published in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability, the study, “Vulnerability of blue foods to human-induced environmental change,” included a global analysis assessing the vulnerability of countries’ fisheries and aquaculture production in the face of anthropogenic impacts, or environmental changes directly caused by human activities. Specifically, anthropogenic threats can reduce the amount of high-quality blue food countries can produce by altering water quality and habitats, causing shifts or declines in stocks, and compromising food safety by contaminating fish with pathogens or pollutants that are toxic for human consumption.
“These findings … pose significant consequences for the production and safety of aquatic, or ‘blue,’ foods, which are increasing in demand across global diets and comes at a time when global food security is already reeling from multiple crises, including the impact of climate change,” Xiamen University Professor Ling Cao, a co-author of the study, said.
Produced as part of the Blue Food Assessment – an international joint initiative bringing together over 100 scientists to understand and promote sustainable blue food projects – the research identified the most relevant human-caused stressors that affect blue food quantity and quality, such as a rise in sea levels, eutrophication, and pesticide use.
Approximately 3.2 billion people rely on blue foods worldwide, the study stated, making these products pivotal in mitigating malnutrition, particularly in low-income and small island developing states (SIDS), as a crucial source of animal protein, essential fatty acids, and critical micronutrients.
“From the world’s biggest producers to small island states, greater mitigation and adaptation strategies need to be implemented to avoid the worst-case scenarios of environmental stressors significantly impacting food security and food safety in populations dependent upon blue foods,” Cao said.
Climate-linked stressors analyzed within the study had broad-ranging impacts on production quantity across the globe, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, while non-climatic stressors were present only in specific countries. For example, fisheries in Thailand had high exposure to pathogens, Cyprus to antibiotics, Trinidad and Tobago to mercury, and Belgium and the Netherlands to harmful parasites.
Capture fisheries, which are more vulnerable to climatic stressors, are most at risk in marine environments, while aquaculture production, which is more vulnerable to non-climatic stressors, is most at risk in fresh-water environments.
Mercury was the most pervasive stressor in the study, causing significant vulnerabilities across all types of fishing. Seaweed mariculture was the least vulnerable blue food production method to anthropogenic stressors.
The study’s researchers also compared possible blue food production impacts to national response capacities, which comprise countries’ social, political, and economic ability to cope and adapt to environmental stressors.
These capacities include the ability to implement flexible fishery management approaches that allow the seafood industry to swiftly adapt to declining or shifting stocks, the economic capacity to transition to different species or adopt new aquaculture technologies when needed, the political ability to enact or amend laws that accommodate shifting habitats and environmental conditions, and the global population’s ability to transition livelihoods in response to severe changes.
The most significant concerns related to response capacities lie in developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America – such as Bangladesh, Togo, and Honduras – where there are high risks to blue food production but low national response capacities. The authors of the study strongly recommend these countries diversify production, such as expanding aquaculture production to regions with low estimated impact, unless or until they can implement sufficient adaptation strategies.
In contrast, countries like Denmark and the U.S. exhibited high response capacities but had disproportionately large risks or impacts to blue food production quantity.
“In these countries, responses should be targeted toward mitigating the impact of environmental change on blue food production systems while building capacity – in terms of improved governance, economy, and social development to enable more resilient blue food production,” Cao said.
Many SIDS have a generally lower risk of experiencing compromised aquaculture food safety due to a reduced presence of pollution-intensive industries in these countries; however, they still face significant risks in marine production due to high exposure to stressors like sea-level rise.
“The paper shows that highly vulnerable blue food production systems exist across all continents; therefore, governments cannot be complacent about the threat posed to blue food production by environmental change,” Cao said. “We hope that our publication will lead to more informed decision-making, the development of context-specific mitigation strategies, further research into the diverse responses within blue food systems, and increased collaboration between jurisdictions to mitigate the impacts of environmental change on blue food systems.”
Photo courtesy of Daracha Thiammueang/Shutterstock
