Ecoscope Toolbox

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The EcoScope Toolbox features a comprehensive set of standardized fisheries, community, ecosystem, and climate indicators, integrated into two unified scoring indices: the Fisheries Index for Sustainable Harvesting (FISH) and the Marine Eocsystem Scoring Index (MESSI), each comprising a set of indicators.

The fisheries indicators focus on key outputs from stock assessment models, such as fishing mortality and biomass-at-sea relative to their respective Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) limits. These metrics are calculated for individual stocks, functional groups, and the overall ecosystem. Additionally, the fisheries component of the toolbox includes three ecosystem overfishing indicators (Ryther, Fogarty, and Friedland), as well as indicators assessing fishing-in-balance and overall fisheries sustainability.

Community indicators are based on a biodiversity index, relative benthic status, mean weighted trophic level, and the average resilience of the catch. The mean temperature of the catch is also included to capture the impact of climate change on marine communities and ecosystems.

Socio-economic indicators encompass the future profitability of fishing fleets, the percentage of catch destined for human consumption, the ratio of unreported to official catch, and the vulnerability of coastal communities to fishing activities. These indicators are calculated at the ecosystem level and contribute to the overall ecosystem sustainability score for case study areas in European Seas. Moreover, they can be applied to other marine ecosystems and fisheries statistical areas or divisions, depending on data availability.

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