[Coral-List] New paper: Management strategies to minimize dredging impacts on fish and fisheries

[Amelia Wenger]

Hi all,

 I would like to draw your attention to our new paper out in Conservation
Letters "Management strategies to minimize the dredging impacts of coastal
development on fish and fisheries" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.
com/doi/abs/10.1111/conl.12572).

Currently, over 80% of traded goods travel by ship. As world trade grows,
the number of ships is expected to increase threefold by 2060. Increasing
coastal development and expansion of port facilities to accommodate higher
shipping rates and new generations of large capacity vessels will require
extensive dredging services in coastal areas.

In this study, we develop the world’s first evidence-based, defensible
approach that enables natural resource managers and dredging operators to
effectively include protection of coastal fishes into dredging management
plans.

We also found that:
-over 2,000 ports worldwide are within the range of at least one threatened
species, while 97 ports are located within the range of five or more
threatened species.

-Between  2010 and 2014, 40.9 million tons of global commercial fisheries
catch and 9.3 million tons of small-scale fisheries catch was extracted
within 5 km of a port.

-While adult fish are unlikely to experience lethal impacts during dredging
activities, we found that fish during early life history stages are at risk
to lethal and sublethal impacts at suspended sediment concentrations and
exposure durations regularly occurring during dredging operations.

Please feel free to share among your networks.

Cheers,

Amelia

-- 
*Amelia Wenger*

Postdoctoral Research Fellow | School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of Queensland

Twitter: @AmeliaWenger

http://www.sees.uq.edu.au/ <http://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/>