| Summary: | Socio-economic analysis of seafood production is important for the conservation of aquatic ecosystems and the management of fisheries and aquaculture activities. Understanding how the livelihoods of people, dependent on the exploitation of aquatic resources, are affected by various changes is essential for decision making. The two main seafood production sectors, fisheries and aquaculture are fundamentally different. Whilst fishing is an extremely uncertain and complex system that operates in an ecological context where constant interactions between biology, ecology, climate, economics and sociology take place (FAO, 2017), aquaculture normally takes place in a considerably more controlled and contained production setting within the ecosystem. However, climate change will likely impact both sectors in various ways. This study presents how uncertainty is considered within the socio-economic assessments of two important economic activities in the Northeast Atlantic, one the salmon aquaculture operation in countries such as Norway, Scotland and the Faroe Islands and the pelagic fisheries in EU, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic waters. A novel approach in our assessment is the consideration of the uncertainties of input factors as consequences of climate change, resource abundance, technology, operators’ behaviour, market conditions, harvesting efficiency, governance policy, and socio-economic status of communities. Data collected by individual surveys and secondary sources are described as statistic distributions that are used for Monte Carlo simulations. Our simulation models enable researchers to predict the likelihoods of occurrence of socio-economic outcomes, and the contributions and sensitiveness of input variables to the profitability of seafood production and the gross value added to the economy.
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