Sundarbans fisheries: a model system for the application of landscape ecology and social science approaches to management

Coastal ecosystems provide important services to human communities, the most well-known being food provision from fishing. Fisheries are critically important, providing food security and income to communities worldwide. However, the removal of marine species and damage to marine habitats from fishing activity may affect other services, like coastal protection and carbon capture. Other industries that depend on healthy marine ecosystems and biodiversity, such as tourism, may also be affected. Fishing activity can also damage resources on which targeted fish species depend, including important nursery areas for young fish.

In response to declines in fish numbers and environmental damage many countries have signed international agreements to use an "ecosystem approach" to fisheries. An ecosystem approach links fish and their environment. To do this we need to understand what aspects of the marine environment are important to fish. A typical method has been to identify "essential fish habitat" - the type of seabed which seems to be most important to the fish in question. This method identifies one essential fish habitat and differs from best practice on land, where we have long recognised that species use different habitats through their lives. On land, we understand that different habitats need to be linked so that animals can move between them. This "landscape ecology" approach is not applied to fisheries management, as we lack sufficient information about spatial distribution of different seabed types and biodiversity patterns across underwater landscapes.

Using underwater camera systems and seabed maps we have previously demonstrated that fish in a UK marine protected area are affected by the seabed type and biodiversity in their immediate area, and also by the wider landscape. Using underwater landscape information has huge potential to improve management of fisheries in the developed and developing world. But we need sufficient...