Maritime Spatial Planning Concepts and Approaches

Often human activities taking place at limited available marine space may lead to important spatial and temporal conflicts and synergies. Through Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) a series maritime issues have been addressed focusing on such interactions. This chapter makes a presentation of the development of Maritime Spatial Planning concepts and approaches on a global basis, highlighting best practices as well as gaps that need to be addressed. Lessons learned from two Mediterranean case studies of the EU FP7 research projects MESMA and COEXIST focusing particularly on fisheries, as one of the main human activities in the two marine areas, interacting with other uses and with conservation initiatives, is also discussed.

The Role of the Black Sea Commission in the Sustainable Management of the Marine Living Resources

In this chapter, the role of the Black Sea Commission in the preservation of marine environment will be considered. Particular emphasis will be placed on the activities related to management of the marine living resources, the legal gaps in the documents and institutional structure, as well the current trends and challenges on the regional and global level. An overview of relevant Black Sea Commission's observers and partners will be provided; existing and possible future arrangements with them will be further described and analyzed. Some concrete recommendations on the improvements in the management of marine living resources in the Black Sea basin will be proposed.

Fish Stock Indicators as Measure for Sustainability

Particular species may be good indicators of specific environmental factors in their local environment. It was found that one of the main objectives for effective and sustainable management of the fish stocks is to make regular annual assessment of the parental stock biomass, length and weight growth, age determination, mortality estimation and reproductive potential estimation. The Black Sea sprat (Sprattus sprattus L.) is a key species in the Black Sea ecosystem. Small pelagic forage fish and especially local one with shared stocks are very important from ecological (key trophic level) and commercial (intensively exploited) point of view. Fishery management strategies must ensure that fishing mortality will not exceed that which corresponds to MSY, and that the biomass will not fall below a predefined threshold. The goal of the chapter is to define the main objectives and measures for sustainable sprat exploitation in order to be in favour of decision makers and fishery managers.

Heavy Metal Levels in Sediment of the Turkish Black Sea Coast

Sediments are an important repository for various pollutants such as pesticides and heavy metals and also play a significant role as sensitive indicators for monitoring contaminants in aquatic systems. Heavy metals which are regarded as serious pollutants of aquatic ecosystems are a major environmental problem in the Black Sea. Contamination by heavy metals has not been extensively studied in the Black Sea coast of Turkey, even though these are subjected to intense discharges of pollutants. It is important, therefore, that sediment by heavy metals be assessed in order to facilitate better management and protection of these valuable coastal ecosystems. This is especially the case, since Turkish Black Sea coast represents a prominent area for fishing, industrial development and urban extension and tourism activities. In view of the economic importance of the Black Sea coastal region of Turkey, this review aims to analyses the distribution and concentrations of heavy metals in bottom sediment in the coastal sediment along the Black Sea.

Fishery Indicators for Policy Use in the Mediterranean and Black Sea

The pursuit of sustainable fisheries development as a policy objective has become increasingly important in recent years and policy makers are requiring more information on how to measure progress towards sustainable development goals. In order to accomplish an effective fisheries management, the understanding of how a combination of the aforementioned multiple pressures reduce sustainable limits of harvest is considered a necessity. The multi-species and multi-gears nature of the Mediterranean fisheries hampers the implementation of management processes based on single species analyses. Therefore, the development of methods to integrate information of the fishery systems complexity could be proven advantageous. Among the different approaches, the application of indicators consist a valuable tool for tracking changes and monitoring the implementation of relevant policies. By reviewing the current state of Mediterranean fisheries and linking it to the legal status of fisheries management, a broad spectrum of available indicators, useful for policy, were further considered.

Overall Impact of Local and Recreational Fisheries

This chapter presents and discusses updated information related to fishing in the NE Atlantic and Mediterranean from a perspective that focuses on three main interchangeable and multidisciplinary issues: a) local/artisanal fisheries, b) recreational fishing and c) marine protected areas. A comprehensive introduction is followed by an updated literature review. Perspectives and solutions show that recreational and artisanal fisheries are clearly understudied and possibly have several impacts that are being unmeasured and often unknown. Another major issue is the lack of a serious long term European compromise to standardize these fisheries since a strong political interference does dominate the whole issue. No solution is possible without knowledge. No knowledge is possible if countries within the Mediterranean basin and NE Atlantic are not strongly and apolitically committed to a wider research scale with the overall interest of small fisheries sustainability and maintenance of healthy stocks as a major goal.

Challenging Scientific Inertia in Fisheries Management

The chapter reviews and analyses the scientific inertia, prevailing in western fisheries management system, which affects some general assumptions: equilibrium in fishery ecosystems, large spawning stocks, which produces large new generations; and fishing activities as main and only factor, which have an impact on targeted stock size. Due to those subjective assumptions the author observes that the external environmental and social factors might be disregarded. It appear that the management applied only by systems output data – valid for all sorts of fishing systems – is taken as appropriate approach, which by any means appear to be a method that would not take into consideration many other issues in stock condition and sustainability. This system seems to be supported for years by the scientists, governmental institutions and the sector, in spite of the abundance of books, case studies and researches, published by independent experts, which are attempting to set real dimensions in the official fishery science and its consequent management.

Stock Assessment of Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus L) in Northern Black Sea and Sea of Azov

European anchovy is most abundant in the Azov and Black Sea Basin ichthyocenosis and plays leading role in the marine fisheries. There are two subspecies of the European anchovy in the Black Sea: the Black Sea anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus ponticus Aleksandrov and the Azov anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus maeoticus Pusanov. Wintering areas of both subspecies (stocks) are located in the Black Sea. Basing on the more than 30-years research of anchovy, this chapter summarizes data on catches, catch per unit effort, population parameters, spatial distribution patterns, abundance, and scientific survey results separately for two stocks. Direct methods of stock assessment, based on trawl, lampara and hydroacoustic surveys data, have been applied. Authors recommend to the Black Sea countries authorities to build their anchovy fishery-regulating decisions mainly on the hydroacoustic surveys' results. A major impact of invasive Atlantic ctenophores Mnemiopsis leidyi and Beroe ovata on anchovy populations is revealed.

Time Series Database Analysis on Fishery in Greece

Statistical institutions collect and store multi-aspect fishery data in databases, but do not provide any on-line processing. Extraction and processing of datasets through known statistical software are not sufficient in case an in-depth data analysis is needed. The developed Information Platform consists of a multidimensional database storing spatial fishery time series in Greece and software modules comprising known statistical and original data mining procedures. The platform provides the capability to find out temporal and spatial features of fishery processes and analyzes sustainability, fish species at biological risk, biodiversity, seasonality and relations among them. This solution supports researchers in the fields of marine biology and ecology to study changes in fish communities and marine ecosystems and facilitates experts and managers to take decisions concerning fish resources exploitation and preservation. The presented approach can be also applied on fishery time series of other fish regions, for example in Black Sea.

The Assessment of the Exploitable Fish Reserves (Stock Assessment)

This chapter explains some theoretical and technical aspects of stock assessments that may be familiar to those directly involved in fisheries science and analysis of fish populations. The information about stock and recruitment concepts, assessment of population growth, natural and fishing moralities, selectivity of fishing gears and relationship between catch and selectivity. It is written particularly for persons involved in scientific activity, for students and for stakeholders who have never been exposed to formal fisheries science training, but are interested in better understanding complicated fisheries concepts. An enhanced knowledge of assessment concepts and fisheries science will promote an increased understanding of fisheries management and give stakeholders greater confidence as they participate in fisheries management process. Understanding how all factors interact is a challenging task, even for experts in fisheries science.