Modeling the Complex Regulatory Interactions Across Multiple Groundfish Fisheries of the Bering Sea

Fisheries management regulations for the Bering Sea groundfish fisheries have been incrementally developed over time in response to changes in legislation, resource conditions, catches, industry structure, scientific information and many other factors.  It has been difficult to evaluate the existing or proposed regulations using a traditional assessment framework given the complex interactions between the fisheries, regulations, and the ecosystems of the Bering Sea.  To accomplish this task, we propose a bioeconomic model based on spatial and temporal fishing opportunities, ecological conditions and regulatory constraints.  Our model depicts fleet behavior as a two-stage decision process, whereby fishing effort is allocated across multiple directed fisheries in the first stage, and subsequently allocate fishing effort across locations within each directed fishery in the second stage.  Interactions among fleets is captured through quotas, spatial closures, and catch of non-target species.  We use this modeling framework to evaluate the current management system that governs the Bering Sea groundfish fisheries and examine whether a simpler set of better-coordinated regulations might result in higher sustainable harvests or lower harvesting costs, with no appreciable effects on ecosystem composition and functioning.