Author(s)

Ying Wang^1,2*, Haoran Pan³, Shiyu Li², Pierre Failler⁴

¹Zhejiang Provincial Key Research Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences for Ecological Civilization, School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China.
²Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
³School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
⁴Centre for the Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources (CEMARE), University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.

This paper puts forward a model of Pearl River Delta (PRD) fishery in the South China Sea (SCS) that integrates the ecological, social and economic costs and benefits of fisheries activities in a multidisciplinary framework. In particular, an integrated ECOST model is composed of links between an ecological model constructed by Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) software and a region Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). Then the costs and benefits of five fishing methods are compared from economic, ecological and social three dimensions base on the ECOST model. The potential effects of fishing effort reduction on fishing communication are explored by a series of dynamic simulations for a 10-year period. Key results from prediction (2005-2015) and policy simulations illustrate that fisheries of PRE are geared toward short-term economic profits at the expense of ecological gains and the whole group of societal benefits associated with fishing. However, the status quo can be improved to better levels by reducing fishing efforts.

Integrated ECOST Model, Ecopath with Ecosim, Costs and Benefits Analysis, Fishing Activities

Wang, Y. , Pan, H. , Li, S. and Failler, P. (2015) An Integrated Socio-Economic and Ecological Framework for Evaluating the Societal Costs and Benefits of Fishing Activities in the Pearl River Delta. Open Journal of Marine Science, 5, 477-497. doi: 10.4236/ojms.2015.54038.