RIGERS BAKIU1*, ELVIS KAMBERI1
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1Departament of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, Agricultural University of Tirana, Koder- Kamez, Tirane, Albania Abstract Climate change has triggered heterogenous pattern of changes in abundance, survival, growth, reproduction phelogeny and distribution of different aquatic communities. The Mediterranean Sea has been identified as one of the most vulnerable regions, and in absence of management plans the status of fishery resources is likely to deteriorate. This paper presents the expected effcts of climate change, represented by the increased Sea Surface Temperature, on the abundance and catch of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) and European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax), in Albanian waters. The ecological productivity and the fisheries catches of these two speces were estimated using the dataset available at the Copernicus EU database. The model used Size Spectra – Dynamic Bioclimate Envelope Model takes into account the impact of environmental changes and human activities to determine biomass and distribution of fish species in response to environmental changes. In order to assess the impact of climate change, the status of fish stocks is defined under two climate scenarios based on different Representative Concentration Pathway. The effects of climate change and fishing management measures are shown to be insignificant on the abundance of gilthead seabream stock. In the case of European seabream, our results suggest thath the effects of climate change will be severe and the lack of proper management measures would be destructive for the stock. Proper adaptation and mitigation measures should be applied in order to minimize the effects of climate change on these fishing resources. Keywords: Climate Change, gilthead seabream; European seabass; Adaptation Measures; Mitigation Measures. |
