Work Package 4 : Enhancing Spatialised Stock Assessment Models

Leaders

• Étienne Rivot - Institut Agro
• Rob VAN GERMERT - SLU

Objectives

The objective of this WP is to enhance eel and salmon spatialised stock assessment models (SSAM) to support regionalised and holistic scientific advice and to foster the shift towards a more ecosystem-based approach of fisheries management, a prerequisite of the CFP. More specifically, the WP seeks to enhance cross-boundary assessment tools that allow assessing stocks at various levels of spatial aggregation, from continental to more local regional scales, to strengthen regionalized assessment and evidence-based management. The WP will also reinforce the operational use of population models that explicitly capture the effects of environmental pressures on key LHT. This will help to provide a better understanding of past changes, prevent bias in current assessment, improve our capacity to forecast population dynamics and productivity in the context of climate change, and will ultimately help to inform the management and conservation of diadromous species within an EAFM. The Specific objectives are:

• Enhance and update scientific knowledge of eel and salmon stocks by assessing variations in eel and salmon key LHT and integrating them into SSAM.
• Optimise the usage of collected LHT data.
• Adapt the scientific advice to the upcoming challenges affecting fisheries management such as climate change by better predicting the effect of climate change on the productivity of stocks.
• Enhance SSAM to support regionalised and holistic assessment and operationalise an EAFM of the two sensitive species.