Funded Projects

Principal Investigator (s) : Victoria Ramenzoni, Rutgers University

Co-Investigator (s) : Chris Free, University of California, Santa Barbara; Olaf Jensen, Rutgers University; Malin Pinsky, Rutgers University; John Wiedenmann, Rutgers University

Collaborators (s) :

To advance current work on socio-economic risk and vulnerabilities in Northeast coastal fisheries, we propose a novel tool that helps communities scope potential adaptation options and connects stakeholders with relevant scientific information on changing ocean conditions. The approach is centered on the "fishing opportunity portfolio": a weighted aggregate of the fishing opportunities utilized by individuals or communities that integrates social, management, and biophysical factors. This index combines three factors that influence fishing opportunities: (1) Abundance and productivity of the target species, (2) Availability of the target species within the typical area fished, and (3) Access to the fishery - the permits and quota, spatial and temporal restrictions, and other regulatory measures that constrain legal access to the fishery.

The fishing opportunity portfolio will be a useful new tool to highlight leverage points for fishery management that are grounded in human behavioral responses to variability in physical, ecological, and biological processes. Using a mixed methods approach (ethnography and semi-structured questionnaires, surveys, mapping, and modelling techniques), we will generate measures of Access, Abundance, and Availability and examine changes and variability in the fishing opportunity portfolios of fishers within five Northeast U.S. fishing communities: Cushing, ME; Newport, RI; Point Pleasant, NJ; Cape May, NJ; and Wanchese, NC. Sites represent a wide range of geography (Maine to North Carolina) and climate vulnerability (Colburn et al. 2016, Jepson and Colburn 2013). In addition, we will request input from NOAA Sea Grant and local extension programs to adjust these pilot communities if needed. To develop and validate fishing opportunity portfolios, we will combine information on fishing practices in these sites with measures of abundance and availability of fishing stocks. These data will allow us to identify temporal trends in fishing opportunities historically and out to 2050. Finally, we will assess adaptation to changes in the fishing opportunity portfolio and hold meetings to communicate results back to fishers, community leaders, and fishery managers.

This proposal directly addresses the broader CSI goal of providing "Support for innovative, applicable and transferable approaches for decision making, especially for risk characterization in the context of a variable and changing climate." We also address two of the specific goals of this competition. We develop a new tool to "Assess socio-economic risks and vulnerabilities of fishing communities to climate related variability and change in marine ecosystems." Our analysis of changes in abundance and productivity for community fishing opportunity portfolios will also be used to "Communicate risks of changing ocean conditions to inform effective planning and management."

Principal Investigator (s) : Katherine Mills, Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Co-Investigator (s) : Jonathan Labaree, Gulf of Maine Research Institute; Bradley Franklin, Gulf of Maine Research Institute; Riley Young Morse, Gulf of Maine Research Institute; Lisa L. Colburn, NOAA Fisheries Service; Eric Thunberg, NOAA Fisheries; Michael Alexander, NOAA Earth System Research Lab

Collaborators (s) :

Marine ecosystems, fish populations, and fisheries that depend on them are all being affected by climate change. In the Northeast U. S., waters have warmed rapidly, marine heatwaves have become more common, and seasonality is changing. These physical changes are affecting fish populations, resulting in declines in some traditionally-important species and the emergence of species from the south. As the species impacts become widely apparent, more complex questions are arising: how will fisheries and fishing communities be affected, and how can they adapt in ways that create new opportunities and ensure the persistence of viable, sustainable fisheries in their communities in the future?

This project will advance the science needed to support adaptation planning by fishing communities in the context of climate-related species changes. With funding from the CSI/COCA/Sustainable Fisheries in a Changing Climate Program: Supporting Resilient Fishing Communities in the Northeast Region, the project will develop community-specific information about vulnerabilities, adaptation strategies, and adaptation pathways. To our knowledge, this project will be the first to apply the adaptation pathways framework—an approach that elucidates multiple adaptation choices, timeframes, and cross-scale dependencies that shape adaptation—to marine fisheries in the U. S. The project will leverage three previously-funded COCA projects to update distribution projections for 56 species and vulnerability information for 75 communities, provide economic assessments of adaptation strategies for 25 communities, and develop adaptation pathways and associated engagement processes for four focal communities. An interactive website will organize, serve, and facilitate long-term user access to data and information on species changes, economic impacts, adaptation benefits, and adaptation pathways under multiple climate and adaptation scenarios. Finally, outreach associated with this project will (1) extend the use of these resources to new fishing communities through training of on-the-ground partners across the region and (2) convey important information to fishery management bodies. Ultimately, the project will serve as a model that can be used by fishing communities facing climate adaptation challenges in other regions of the U.S. and world.

This project contributes to the NOAA Climate Program Office’s goal of advancing scientific information to enable effective decisions that support ecosystem, community, and economic resilience. It will integrate information across the complex system in which fisheries operate— from physics and ecosystems to economies and communities—to produce vulnerability information, develop adaptation pathways, and work with local communities to apply that information to their adaptation planning processes. In addition, the project addresses all five objectives requested by the COCA/CSI program: (1) assess socio-economic risks and vulnerabilities of fishing communities to climate-related variability and change, (2) work with fishing communities to scope potential adaptation options and outline the costs of inaction, (3) improve existing or develop new methodologies to connect fishing communities with relevant scientific information on changing ocean conditions, (4) communicate risks of changing ocean conditions to inform effective planning and management, and (5) develop tools, guidance, and/or trainings to build capacity for responding to the impacts of changing oceans. While meeting NOAA’s strategic objectives, this project will provide tangible information for Northeast U. S. fishing communities as they prepare to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Principal Investigator (s) : Keith Evans, University of Maine

Co-Investigator (s) : Dr. Yong Chen, University of Maine; Andrew Crawley, University of Maine; Teresa Johnson University of Maine

Collaborators (s) :

Partners: Maine Lobster Association and the Maine Department of Marine Resources Introduction to the problem: The American lobster is a major seafood commodity and supports the most valuable fishery in the US, worth more than $667 million in 2016. Over 5,000 fishermen, their families, and their communities in Maine rely on the lobster fishery as a source of income, employment, and cultural identity. Often, fishermen lack alternative employment opportunities, leaving them sensitive to changes in the abundance and spatial distribution of lobster. Recent studies question the social resilience of Maine’s lobstermen and lobster fishing communities, especially their ability to respond to environmental and social changes, and call for better preparing fishers to adapt to future changes. Changes in the abundance and/or spatial distribution of lobster may impact fishery production and create ripples throughout the regional economic system. Not only are the incomes of lobstermen impacted, but also the incomes of businesses directly related to the seafood supply chain (e.g., bait shops, dealers, and processors) and those indirectly related to the fisher fishery (e.g., restaurants and tourism). Likewise, the population dynamics of American lobster are vulnerable to harvest activities and changes in environmental conditions. Together, this describes a coupled natural-human system vulnerable to environmental changes and the corresponding biological, social, and economic impacts.

Rationale: As the rate of environmental change is predicted to accelerate, alongside the species’ ongoing distributional shifts, there is a growing need to develop predictive capacity for spatio-temporal changes in lobster distribution and resulting socio-economic impacts, and to better prepare fishermen to respond to future change. One of the best ways to adapt to altered marine ecosystems is to improve our ability to forecast biological, social, and economic responses through improved modeling capability. Thus, the overarching goal of this study is to improve our predictive capacity and fishermen’s ability to adapt to environmental changes. 

Summary of work: We propose to develop improved and integrated modeling capacity, leveraging new and existing biological, social and economic data, to improve our ability to forecast biological, social and economic responses. Objective 1 (Biological): Project possible changes in spatio-temporal distribution of American lobster along the coast of Maine in a changing Gulf of Maine (GOM); Objective 2 (Economic): Explore the capacity for adaptive behavior by fishermen and quantify the economic impacts under possible changes in the spatio- temporal distribution of American lobster; and Objective 3 (Social): document and identify resilience strategies for lobstermen and their communities facing a changing marine environment.

Relevance: This project addresses several COCA goals. Specifically, the “need to understand key socio-economic challenges affecting fishing communities as well as [the] mechanisms to effectively communicate this information for adaptation planning and management; ... build the capacity of fishing communities along the US northeast; [and]... assess socio-economic assess socio-economic risks and impacts of climate-driven changes in marine ecosystems to inform adaptation planning and management decisions.”

Principal Investigator (s) : David Gregg, Rhode Island Natural History Survey

Co-Investigator (s) : Hirotsugu Uchida, University of Rhode Island; Dawn M. Kotowicz, Coastal Resource Center, Rhode Island Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island; Katherine E. Masury, Eating with the Ecosystem

Collaborators (s) :

Due to climate change and variability, fish stocks are shifting in location, timing, and abundance. In the last decade, the waters off of New England have already warmed faster than much of the world’s oceans and as a result, the impacts of climate change and variability are particularly acute in this region. Fisheries scientists have been studying these changes in order to advance the understanding of climate-related impacts on our marine ecosystems and fish populations. In turn, fisheries managers have begun to figure out how to incorporate this science into their management decisions. Development of real-time and dynamic response mechanisms in management are critical for fisheries to remain viable in such a variable environment. 

However, as fishermen land a different composition of species, land different volumes of species, or land species at different times of year than they historically have, it is uncertain how these types of changes will play out in the seafood marketplace. Resilient fishing communities rely not only on healthy fish stocks and sustainable management, but also on marketplace demand and functioning seafood supply chains.

In this project, we propose to conduct the first major research project focused on climate change and seafood supply chains in New England. In addition to gathering a high-level overview of impacts, vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience in a broad spectrum of supply chains originating in New England fishing ports, we will use survey and field experimental methods to study how the New England seafood supply chains respond to seafood species that are “climate winners” (i.e. species that are predicted to become more abundant in New England waters due to climate change) and how they can most effectively market these species to support resilient local fishing communities.

Principal Investigator (s) : Lisa Kerr: Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Co-Investigator (s) : Jonathan Labaree, Gulf of Maine Research Institute; Jonathan Cummings, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; Matthew Cutler, Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Collaborators (s) :

Once a driving economic force supporting coastal communities, the multi-species groundfish fishery in New England is at a crossroads. Several species of the groundfish complex are at record low abundance and evidence suggests future adverse effects on these stocks due to climate change. The tension between conservation and industry objectives for this fishery is strong and presents a challenging backdrop upon which to plan for a future fishery that is resilient in the face of change. Co-development of a long-term strategy for the groundfish fishery in a changing Gulf of Maine by stakeholders is needed.

NOAA has engaged our project team to develop models that predict the effectiveness of alternative groundfish management strategies under various future climate scenarios and uncertainties.This is a critical first step, but without deliberate stakeholder education and engagement this management strategy evaluation (MSE) process cannot reach its full potential. MSE is a vehicle for participatory decision-making and co-development of management strategies with stakeholders will increase the realism of model scenarios, improve trust in the process, and increase the likelihood of implementation of adaptive harvest strategies by managers.

The goal of this project is to provide climate intelligence to fisheries stakeholders in the Northeast groundfish industry and develop stakeholders’ capacity to participate in MSE processes that address climate challenges to their fishery. We will address this goal through stakeholder engagement and research that characterizes what different participants learn through the process. We will utilize ongoing groundfish MSE work as a tool for communicating the predicted impacts of climate change on the groundfish resource and fishery. We aim to achieve three objectives related to stakeholder engagement: 1) increase stakeholder understanding of the impacts of climate change on the groundfish resource, fishery, and management system, 2) develop stakeholders’ capacity to participate in MSE processes, and 3) elicit stakeholder perspectives on the application of MSE to the groundfish fishery in a changing ocean. In addition, we aim to achieve three research objectives: 1) characterize stakeholder learning on climate-fisheries impacts and MSE from each workshop, 2) document lessons learned by the science team and develop best practices for engaging stakeholders in a climate-informed MSE process, and 3) integrate stakeholder feedback into groundfish MSE and evaluate the performance of suggested alternative management procedures. We propose a series of four workshops, with associated research activities occurring between meetings, to achieve our objectives.

This research addresses the objectives of NOAA’s COCA program for focused projects Supporting Resilient Fishing Communities in the Northeast Region. This work will directly address the call to “help build capacity of fishing communities along the U.S. Northeast coast to assess socio-economic risks and impacts of climate-driven changes in marine ecosystems to inform adaptation planning and management decisions”. Participants will gain a better understanding of the MSE process and give them the necessary tools to directly participate in shaping the vision for their future fishery. Stakeholder input is expected to improve the realism of the MSE, acceptance of MSE results, and effectiveness of the process for meeting the objectives of U.S. stakeholders.

Principal Investigator (s) : Lisa Kerr Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI)

Co-Investigator (s) : Andrew Pershing, GMRI; Gavin Fay and Steven Cadrin, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; and Sarah Gaichas, Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Collaborators (s) :

The Northeast U.S. Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NESLME) has warmed over the last decade, with a long-term warming trend that is four times the global average rate and recent decadal warming that is faster than 99.9% of the global ocean. Climate-mediated change in this region is unprecedented, and the impacts of climate change on marine fisheries resources, such as changes in productivity, are increasing. Once abundant and supporting a profitable fishing industry, some groundfish stocks in the NESLME, such as Georges Bank cod, have declined to record-low biomass in recent years, whereas others, such as Georges Bank haddock, have increased to record-high biomass. Shifts in the productivity of Northeast groundfish may reflect individual species responses to recent warming and associated oceanographic changes. The goal of our proposed research is to develop fisheries management procedures that consider climate-driven changes and evaluate whether they result in more adaptive, successful management of groundfish species given forecasted climate change in the NESLME. Our proposed research will: 1) evaluate how principal groundfish stocks will respond to regional climate change, 2) investigate plausible approaches to tailoring fisheries management procedures to the prevailing environmental state, including climate-informed or climate-responsive stock assessments, biological reference points, and harvest control rules, and 3) quantify the expected ecological and economic performance of alternative fisheries management procedures in a changing climate. We will apply Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) to address our objectives. At the center of our MSE approach will be a series of operating models that incorporate mechanistic relationships between life history processes and temperature to simulate the population dynamics of two principal groundfish stocks (i.e. Georges Bank Atlantic cod and haddock stocks). These models will be simulated under alternative temperature scenarios that capture future projected climate change in the NESLME. We will then simulate sampling these stocks through the fishery and through scientific surveys. The simulated data will be used to assess the stocks using standard stock assessment models and models that allow for non-stationarity or incorporate temperature information directly into process equations. Additionally, we will develop and test biological reference points and alternative methods of advice setting that both capture non- stationarity in aspects of productivity and directly integrate temperature. We will combine economic metrics with biomass-related and yield metrics derived from the MSE to provide a comprehensive view of the economic and ecological risks and returns of the alternative fisheries management strategies. We will develop an interactive web application for synthesizing the results of the MSE and use this as a tool to communicate with stakeholders. This research specifically addresses the COCA priorities of identification and evaluation of robust management strategies, adaptive management processes, and climate-informed reference points. This work will also contribute to key objectives of NOAA’s Next Generation Strategic Plan, including improved understanding of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems and development of strategies to meet the societal challenges associated with these changes. The approaches tested in this project will be shared broadly within the region and the insight gained by this study will be directly applicable to other U.S. fisheries.

Principal Investigator (s) : Rubao Ji, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)

Co-Investigator (s) : Cabell Davis, Robert Beardsley, Di Jin, and Porter Hoagland, WHOI; Changsheng Chen, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Collaborators (s) : Eric Thunberg, Min-Yang Lee, Burton Shank and Deborah Hart, Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Introduction/rationale — Climate-ocean physical-biological models have great potential for advancing ecosystem-based fisheries management, but they have yet to be fully applied in this context. Science input to fisheries management for the NESLME remains largely based on individual species stock assessments, but a deeper understanding of the underlying ecological processes is critical for developing adaptive management strategies in a variable and changing climate. The proposed modeling study will implement a new ecologically based approach with adaptive fisheries management in the NESLME, providing insights into how scenarios of future climate change could impact fisheries in this region. The proposed study focuses on the sea scallop Placopecten magellanicus fishery, in economic terms one of the most important fisheries in the region. The biological characteristics and ecological role of the sea scallop make it a logical species for testing the capabilities of our proposed approach.

Objectives/work summary — The overall objective of this proposal is to gain insights into the impacts of climate change on the NESLME sea scallop fishery and to characterize adaptive management strategies that are robust to climate variability and change. The proposed end-to-end scallop model will be built on an existing modeling system, in which concentration-based lower food-web and individual-based larval transport models have been incorporated a high-resolution 3D hydrodynamic model to study climate-forced ecosystem dynamics, plankton production, connectivity, and recruitment success in the NESLME. The proposed study will extend our individual-based full-life-cycle model of sea scallops to examine multi-scale forcing on system productivity, recruitment, and adult stock size. This biological-physical model will be coupled with a socioeconomic model to assess the potential for adaptive management strategies to achieve reference points comprising measures of fishery performance, such as yield, net present value, spawning biomass, or employment, among others. The regional physical model is contained within a global ocean model, which provides boundary conditions and multi-scale physical forcing. A physical hindcast has been completed for the period 1978-present and is currently used in ocean forecasting. An existing hindcast of lower-food web dynamics will be extended to cover the period 1978-present. An individual-based, full-life-cycle model of sea scallops will be used together with historical data on sea scallop distributions to develop a 40-yr hindcast for this species. The coupled model will be used to examine effects of temperature, food, and ocean acidification on scallop dynamics and stock size. Scenarios of future climate change (IPCC RPC2.6 and RPC8.5) will be used to develop probabilistic forecasts of the ecosystem and sea scallop stocks in the NESLME from the present out to 2100. A bioeconomic model framework, including adaptive management strategies of the sea scallop fishery, will be implemented to evaluate the effects of climate and stock changes on the achievement of alternative measures of fishery performance, including fishing location, revenue and cost, fishing port geography, and fishing community vulnerability.

Relevance – The proposed study directly addresses the six priorities of this NESLME competition and the objectives of NOAA’s Next Generation Strategic Plan and Fisheries Climate Science Strategy. The comprehensive modeling approach, linking climate to ecosystem-based fisheries management and socioeconomics, is the top priority for the Northeast Regional Action Plan. The project advances the integration of climate impacts into NOAA fisheries stewardship.

Principal Investigator (s) : Richard Bell, The Nature Conservancy, URI Bay Campus

Co-Investigator (s) :

Collaborators (s) : John Manderson and David Richardson, Northeast Fisheries Science Center; Enrique Curchitser, Rutgers University; Mark Anderson, Marta Ribera and Jenn Greene, The Nature Conservancy

Climate change is altering the distribution and abundance of fish species in ways not anticipated by current management policy. We aim to inform sustainable fisheries management by creating spatially-explicit, dynamic models of marine habitats that can improve stock assessments and project stocks into the future for thirty commercially important species on the Northeast Shelf. Improving upon methods used in the 2014 Butterfish stock assessment, we will expand the dimensions of habitat included in the models by integrating substrate, and seabed features along with the dynamic properties of the water column that change on daily to decadal time scales. We propose to develop the thermal-benthic habitat suitability index for thirty species and then project the suitable habitat into the future with downscaled earth system models. While studies projecting species temperature envelopes into the future have been done, they have rarely been explicitly developed to improve stock assessments or combined both the water column and seafloor to get a true picture of climate induced habitat changes. The work would provide direct benefit to management by identifying changes in the availability of populations to surveys, commercial fisheries, future bycatch issues, the potential need for quota reallocation, and highlighting stocks both leaving and entering new management areas. The suitable habitat will integrate the benthic features to determine how habitat will expand, shrink, and/or fragment in the future. With data from the Northeast Fishery Science Center (NEFSC) trawl survey, the NorthEast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program survey (NEAMAP), State surveys and the benthic information from the Northeast Regional Assessment, we will determine the mechanistic thermal-benthic habitat response curve for each species, and map out the spatial extent of the suitable habitat for different years and seasons with regional ocean models. The dynamic 3-D habitat models linking the water column with seafloor features for each species will then be projected into the future with downscaled earth system models to examine how future fish habitat will change, expand or fragment under future climate conditions. The current overlap of species as well as future overlap will be identified, highlighting potential regulatory changes needed as species move into new areas. The management implications include quota allocations, management jurisdictional changes, and bycatch impacts. Our proposal directly responds to NOAA’s goals as outlined in the Next Generation Strategic Plan. It primarily addresses objective one of the Healthy Oceans Goal, to Improved understanding of ecosystems to inform resource management decisions. The research would improve the understanding of the impacts of climate variability and change on habitat which directly regulates the abundance and distribution of managed fish stocks. Our intent is to utilize these current and historic data sets to improve the synthesis, analysis, and application of climate and marine ecosystem observations and monitoring information to improve fisheries management.

Principal Investigator (s) : Daniel Stich, State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oneonta

Co-Investigator (s) : Timothy Sheehan, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Katherine Mills, Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Collaborators (s) :

Introduction and Rationale: American shad, Alosa sapidissima, is an anadromous fish that historically supported economically and culturally important fisheries. The species has declined throughout its range due to changing ocean climate, commercial fisheries, and hydropower dams. In response, NOAA Fisheries Services’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center has undertaken the development of quantitative support tools to quantify the impacts of dam passage performance standards (passage rates and survival) on the productivity of various shad stocks in the Northeast U.S. These models allow for incorporation of uncertainty in life-history parameters, behavioral ecology, human impacts, and environmental drivers. Climate change scenarios have not been integrated into the existing model. This is a critical omission as changing temperatures can significantly alter population productivity through a number of mechanisms that would impact growth and survival in marine and freshwater habitats, as well as the timing, duration, and success of spawning migrations. Riverine and marine temperatures have the potential to influence the net productivity of a population; consequently, changing climate might favor drastically different management strategies with respect to fisheries harvest or dam passage.

Summary of Work: This study proposes to evaluate the influences of multiple factors on the recovery and productivity potential of several American shad stocks in the Northeast U.S. through the integration of climate uncertainty into existing decision support tools. Climate uncertainty will be incorporated by: i) hindcasting historical impacts of ocean temperatures on American shad growth to establish climate-informed reference points; ii) integrating temperature projections from multiple climate models into American shad models to improve resilience of management decisions related to fishery harvest and dam passage; and iii) assessing sensitivity of model projections to climate change in concert with fishery harvest, dam passage performance standards, and uncertainty in life history and ecology of this species.

Relevance to Competition: The proposed work targets Coastal and Ocean Climate Applications (COCA), Competition II: Understanding Climate Impacts on Fish Stocks and Fisheries in the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem. The quantitative consideration of uncertainties associated with life-history characteristics, population benchmarks, and climate change will make management of fishery harvest and dam impacts more robust and resilient. The proposed work also addresses multiple sub-objectives in the NOAA Next-Generation Strategic Plan under the following long-term goals: i) Climate Adaptation and Mitigation; ii) Healthy Oceans; and iii) Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies. This project will directly assess the sensitivity of population productivity and recovery to interactions between predicted climate change, fishery harvest, and management of fish passage as a holistic approach to understanding influences on sustainability of management decisions. The resulting decision-making tool will allow managers to consider uncertainty in climate change and life-history parameters in the decisions they must make with respect to the management of fishery harvest and dam passage for adults and juveniles. The incorporation of temperature effects through multiple biological pathways constitutes a relatively unique approach to fishery stock assessment that will promote resiliency and sustainability in long-term decision making. This tool is readily extended across multiple systems and can support the development of American shad management plans throughout the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem.

Principal Investigator (s) : Michael Jacox, University of California Santa Cruz

Co-Investigator (s) : Michael Alexander, NOAA ESRL; Enrique Curchitser, Rutgers University; Ryan Rykaczewski, University of South Carolina

Collaborators (s) :

The California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME) supports highly valuable fisheries, including those on coastal pelagic (CPS) and highly migratory (HMS) fish species. The productivity and distribution of CPS and HMS species in the CCLME have been impacted by recent climate variability (NOAA, 2016). Thus, there is potential for climate-forced changes in the productivity and spatial distributions of these species to affect ecosystem processes, fisheries operations, and fisheries management (Link et al., 2015), ultimately causing socio-economic impacts on fishing communities. To be able to sustain their mandate of maintaining a resilient CCLME ecosystem and fishing economy, US federal fisheries managers in the CCLME must understand how managed species, and the ecosystem that supports them, respond to climate-induced change. There is therefore a clear need to identify science-based policies that can achieve these management objectives under a changing climate. We propose to develop an end-to-end framework to identify climate-resilient management strategies for the CCLME and evaluate the impacts of climate change on US-managed marine species and fishing communities in the CCLME. Key elements of the proposed work plan are: (1) Produce regional climate projections of fishery-relevant variables such as temperature and chlorophyll biomass for the CCLME, using output from global climate models to force a high resolution regional ocean circulation model (ROMS) coupled with a biogeochemical model (2) Use these projections in conjunction with ecological and socio-economic models to predict productivity and distribution changes in managed species in the CCLME, and the socio-economic impacts of these changes on fishing communities; (3) Evaluate current catch advice and spatial management strategies for the Pacific sardine, albacore, and swordfish fisheries given the potential future impacts of climate variability and change; (4) Use management scenarios to consider the socio-economic impacts on fishery participants and affected fishing communities; (5) Explore possible policy and management responses to climate change impacts on sardine, albacore, and swordfish fisheries.