A RESILIENCE CHECKLIST FOR NJ'S COMMERCIAL FISHING INDUSTRY
Helping New Jersey’s Commercial Fishing Businesses Evaluate and Improve Their Preparedness for Coastal Hazards and Fisheries Changes
Introduction
Since the 1600s, New Jersey’s fishing industry has continuously adapted to change. Today, commercial fishing ports are experiencing an increase in the intensity and frequency of natural hazards and shifts in marine fishery resources due to climate change. The Resilience Checklist for New Jersey’s Commercial Fishing Industry was created to assist businesses by reflecting on the steps that they have already taken to be resilient and identify opportunities to further prepare for current and future risks.
Commercial Fishing Ports in New Jersey
Click the icons on the map below to learn more about each major commercial fishing port in New Jersey. Notice their diversity in target species and vessel types from north to south.
Left: Fishing vessel The CASHIER (ca. 1849), moored in Commercial Township.| Right: The SHELL GAME II (2022), in Port Norris, NJ.
As you can see, the fishing vessels along the Delaware Bay have remained quite similar in operation over the last century. However, what you can’t see is the climate change impacts the fishing industry has and continues to endure to stay in operation.
Climate change threatens to increase the intensity and frequency of coastal hazards and fishery changes. Knowing that these challenges have impacted fishing businesses in the past – and will continue to cause impacts in the future – highlights the importance of planning and preparation to improve resilience.
Climate Impacts on Fisheries
In New Jersey, coastal fishing communities from small villages to large ports are seeing increased frequency of coastal hazards with inundation from flooding, coastal storms, and sea level rise. By 2050, New Jersey is expected to see about one foot above current Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) of sea level rise alone. These impacts flood working waterfronts, damage infrastructure, and disrupt the transportation of goods and services. Concurrently, shifts in the population dynamics and distribution of marine fishery resources due in part to climate change impacts are influencing fishing behavior, fisheries management, and the seafood supply chain.
Commercial fishing communities know (perhaps better than anyone) that storms, floods, and shoreline erosion are a natural part of living and working on the coast. Coastal hazards can damage assets, disrupt business, and cause financial loss like we experienced after Superstorm Sandy.
Damage to Pirates Cove Restaurant and docks at the Belford Seafood Co-Op, and the Clam Hut along the Raritan Bay after Superstorm Sandy. Ken Barber 2012.
Can you maintain business operations during or after a coastal hazard event?
Assessing the risks using ‘a whole port approach’ is the first step to reducing vulnerability. Even if a fishing vessel is unaffected by floods, the fishing business could suffer if flooding damages, or prevents access to, land-based infrastructure such as boat ramps, docks, processing facilities or vendors like the restaurants above after Superstorm Sandy.
Businesses that are prepared to respond to coastal hazards can more quickly resume operations during or after a coastal hazard event. Proactively planning for recovery allows a business to implement actions and “bounce forward” by rebuilding stronger, smarter, safer, and more resiliently.
One way to assess and prepare for coastal hazards is the use of tools such as NJ FloodMapper. Visualize direct and indirect flood impacts using a range of projections in a Total Water Level approach that incorporates a composite of sea level rise, extreme high tides ( sunny day flooding ), and storm surge.
Shifts in the center of fall distribution of black sea bass (upper) and summer flounder (lower) along the northeast U.S. continental shelf from the 1970s through 2018. Data are based on the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center's fall bottom trawl surveys.
According to the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Vulnerability Assessment , a wide range of species caught by NJ's commercial fisheries, including migratory finfish (e.g., summer flounder) and stationary shellfish (e.g., oysters), are seeing shifts in their productivity in response to warming ocean waters and associated ecosystem changes. This plays a role in the management of commercial fisheries.
For example, fishing vessels must travel longer distances when a target species becomes out of range. Because vessels land at different ports, this change may increasingly prohibit the accessibility of resources and disrupt the seafood supply chain.
These changes compromise the success and prosperity of the commercial fishing industry. Considering these impacts now can improve resiliency to recent or future shifts.
HAVE YOU NOTICED shifts in marine fisheries resources based on your fishing experience or knowledge of fisheries research? Have you considered how your fishing activity or operations might have been influenced by species shifts?
Cold water species such as Atlantic cod have become less abundant off NJ due in part to warming ocean water temperatures.
You can identify potential fisheries changes for the species commonly targeted at your port or dock using complied trawl survey data and trends with the NOAA DisMAP online portal.
You can use these same tools to assess and address risks to your fishing operations.
How to use the Checklist
This checklist can identify opportunities to improve resilience to storms and other coastal hazards, as well as changes in the productivity and distribution of fish populations.
Although it can be used individually by one business or fisherman, it is most effective when completed collaboratively by several fishing businesses or fishermen from a New Jersey port or dock.
Use this to start conversation and coordination among dock managers, fishermen, processors, dealers, and others involved in the industry about planning and preparation to address vulnerabilities.
Resilient New Jersey Fisheries And Beyond
Products from this work will continue to help improve the resiliency of New Jersey’s commercial fishing ports to climate change impacts and to identify ways to increasingly consider these issues in fisheries management decision-making.
The resilience checklist is available for other ports to assess their vulnerability and can be transferred (and specialized) for use by ports throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The Resilience Checklist for NJ’s Commercial Fishing Industry could be expanded in the future to include aquaculture, recreational fisheries, and other shore-side businesses.
Contacts
Lisa Auermuller | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | auermull@marine.rutgers.edu
Douglas Zemeckis | Rutgers Cooperative Extension | zemeckis@njaes.rutgers.edu
Eleanor Bochenek | (Retired) Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | eboch@hsrl.rutgers.edu
Amanda Archer | Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve | amanda.archer@marine.rutgers.edu
Acknowledgements
Thanks to others from Rutgers University who contributed to producing this checklist, including Vanessa Tropiano, Rachael Sacatelli, Jim Trimble, and Dr. Rick Lathrop. This checklist was adapted from existing Fisheries Resilience Indices developed by Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant for the Gulf of Mexico and the Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve for Alaska. The checklist was refined with broad participation from commercial fishing industry stakeholders in New Jersey and fisheries managers during 2020-2022.
