Edited by Villy Christensen, Sherman Lai, Maria Lourdes D. Palomares, Dirk Zeller, and Daniel Pauly. 

Director's Foreword

As stated in the Editors' Preface, this report comes as a response to UNEP's call for indicators that will either measure or give inference on the impact of climate change on marine resources of Regional Seas. The contributions included in this report demonstrate that such indicators can be largely extracted from the various components of the Sea Around Us projects database, which contains data on fish and fisheries, ranging from the ecological to the economic and social. More data for the computation of these indicators were obtained from global information systems such as FishBase and SeaLifeBase for biological indicators and atmospheric and oceanographic databases for environmental indicators. The accessibility of the data required for the extraction of these indicators (as most are readily available online) will facilitate global assessments not only for UNEP's Regional Seas, but also for the United Nations Conference of the Parties member countries' EEZs, thereby making it possible to 'repatriate' data and results. Furthermore, the continued emphasis on this body of work by the Sea Around Us project and its partners ensures that these indicators can be extracted and updated for future assessments as the existing routines are improved, new routines are developed and more current data are encoded into the various databases used.

I thank the Editors and contributors of this report for documenting and making this body of work available to a wide audience.

U. Rashid Sumaila

Director and Associate Professor

The UBC Fisheries Centre

CONTENTS

DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD 1
EDITORS’ PREFACE 2
METHODOLOGY
Deriving indicators for Regional Seas
Sherman Lai, Dalai Felinto, Jeroen Steenbeek, Joe Buszowski, Audrey Valls,
Reg Watson, Dirk Zeller, Daniel Pauly and Villy Christensen 3
ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS
Nitrogen, phosphorus and silica input in Regional Seas
Arthur H.W. Beusen 10
Atmospheric nitrogen deposition in Regional Seas in 1860, 1993, and 2050
Frank Dentener 15
BIODIVERSITY INDICATORS
Using ‘Aquamaps’ for representing species distribution in Regional Seas
Kristin Kaschner, Jonathan S. Ready, Eli Agbayani, Kathy Kesner-Reyes, Josephine Rius-Barile, Paul D. Eastwood,
Andrew B. South, Sven O. Kullander, Tony Rees, Reg Watson, Daniel Pauly, Rainer Froese 17
Distribution and abundance trends for marine mammals
Kristin Kaschner, Line Bang Christensen 22
Diversity of commercially exploited fish and invertebrates in Regional Seas
William Cheung, Vicky Lam, Maria Lourdes D. Palomares, Reg Watson, Daniel Pauly 24
Climate-change induced species invasions and extirpations in Regional Seas
William Cheung, Vicky Lam, Jorge L. Sarmiento, Kelly Kearney, Reg Watson, Daniel Pauly 27
FISHERIES, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INDICATORS
Fisheries landings from Regional Seas
Reg Watson 32
Mariculture production in Regional Seas
Pablo Trujillo and Sherman Lai 35
Stock-status plots of fisheries for Regional Seas
Kristin Kleisner and Daniel Pauly 37
The Marine Trophic Index (MTI), the Fishing in Balance (FiB) Index and the spatial expansion of fisheries
Kristin Kleisner and Daniel Pauly 41
Ecosystem size spectra as indicator for Regional Seas
Maria Lourdes D. Palomares and Daniel Pauly 45
Modeling future fisheries catch scenarios
Robert Ahrens and Villy Christensen 47
Global-warming induced changes in the catch potential of Regional Seas
William Cheung, Vicky Lam, Jorge L. Sarmiento, Kelly Kearney, Reg Watson, Dirk Zeller, Daniel Pauly 50
Value of fisheries landings in Regional Seas
Wilf Swartz, Reg Watson and U. Rashid Sumaila 55
Employment in marine fisheries: national, regional and global estimates
Lydia Teh and U.R. Rashid Sumaila 57
Subsidies to fisheries in Regional Seas
U. Rashid Sumaila, Ahmed S. Khan, Andrew J. Dyck, Reg Watson, Gordon Munro, Peter Tyedmers, Daniel Pauly 59
APPENDICES
Appendix 1. Nitrogen, phosphorus and silica, 62; Appendix 2. Nitrogen deposition, 64; Appendix 3. Fisheries landings, 65; Appendix 4. Mariculture production, 67; Appendix 5. Stock-status plots, 68; Appendix 6. Catch from bottom-disturbing gears, 70; Appendix 7. Catch of top predatory fish, 71; Appendix 8. Catch potential, 72; Appendix 9. Marine trophic index, 74;
Appendix 10. Fishing-in-Balance (FiB), 76; Appendix 11. Landed value of fisheries, 77; Appendix 12. Fisheries subsidies, 78;
Appendix 13. Fisheries employment, 80; Appendix 14. File mapping, 81