Behavioral response of fishers to hypoxia and the distributional impact on harvest

• Main Author: Mukherjee, Z. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2021
• Subjects: Bioeconomic modeling; Contemporaneous; environmental impact; fishing industry; hypoxia; Hypoxia; Lagged; lobster; Lobster; Long Island Sound; Martes; Spatial; spatial analysis; United States
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 Marine hypoxia adversely affects parts of numerous waterbodies around the world. The effects extend to marine organisms. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we present a theoretical model that can be used to analyze the spatial effects of hypoxia on harvest for any fishing industry. Second, we use temporally and spatially differentiated harvest data for Connecticut Long Island Sound lobster industry to estimate the contemporaneous and lagged effects of hypoxia on harvest across three adjacent fishing zones, only one of which faces moderate to severe hypoxic conditions each summer. The key insight from the theoretical model shows that hypoxia can affect the optimal harvest of both the hypoxic and non-hypoxic fishing zones, and that the impact outside the hypoxic zone will vary across species, depending on how the species responds. Results from the empirical model are consistent with the theoretical findings, i.e., the presence of hypoxic water conditions reduced harvest from both the hypoxic and non-hypoxic water zones during the period between 1995 and 2011. © 2021