Human Well-Being, Fishing Strategies and Diversity

Human well-being is an increasingly important measure of natural resource management, and is a formal one for US fisheries. Previous work, using income variability as a measure of well-being, has demonstrated that participating in a diverse set of fisheries can reduce a vessel’s income volatility. We analyze vessel-level landings data which included port of landing, price per pound, and species by weight for all commercial trips on the US west coast from 2009-2013. We find that a vessel’s fishing strategy can help explain income volatility, but that diversity continues to reduce income variability, regardless of vessel strategy. We find that fisheries diversification influences human well-being, but that vessels can benefit by specializing depending on the ecological context of their fishing. We consider ecological and economic management implications of these findings.