Fisheries in life cycle assessment: Operational factors for biotic resources depletion

• Published in: Fish and Fisheries
• Main Authors: Helias, Arnaud, Langlois, Juliette, Fréon, Pierre
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de Biotechnologie de l'Environnement Narbonne (LBE), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), Pôle ELSA, Environmental Life Cycle and Sustainability Assessment (ELSA), Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), MARine Biodiversity Exploitation and Conservation (UMR MARBEC), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ANR-10-BTBR-04, ANR- 14-CE05-0043, ANR-10-BTBR-0004,IDEALG,Biotechnologies pour la valorisation des macroalgues(2010), ANR-14-CE05-0043,GreenAlgOhol,Evaluation des potentialités d'une filière de macroalgues vertes cellulosiques pour la production de bioethanol – preuve de concept technique et durabilité(2014)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2018
• Subjects: catch series; characterization factor; fishing impact; impact assessment method; LCA; surplus production model; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment/Ecosystems; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-01828645; https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12299

International audience Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the normed and international framework for assessing the environmental impacts of most human activities. LCA is commonly used to assess various aspects of fisheries but is only at the onset for estimating impacts of fish removal. This study proposes original characterization factors (CFs) to quantify impacts on biotic resources using the mass of fish caught. This mid‐point assessment occurs in impact pathways leading to “natural resources,” one of the three areas of protection in LCA, and thus fisheries can be compared according to the depleted stock fraction. CFs are defined by the marginal approach applied to the Schaefer model, representing the dynamics of the stocks. They combine catches, current biomass and maximum intrinsic growth rates, determined from the application of the CMSY algorithm (Froese et al. (2017), Fish Fish, 18, 506) with FAO and FishBase data. A multistock CF is also proposed and used for multispecies‐stocks. CFs for the 4,993 stocks defined from global FAO areas are obtained and sorted according to the robustness of the model hypotheses. CF values among stocks generally tend to decrease when fish catches increase because high catches are generally associated with abundant stocks. Multispecies‐stocks CFs for the northeast Atlantic Ocean are compared to ICES‐based CFs and are reliable for the main fished stocks. With this simple and generic structure, this operational fish resource depletion potential could be extended to other biotic resources.