Recent changes of the Turkish anchovy fishery in the black seawith special reference to climate change

Abstract

The Black Sea ecosystem, suffering ecological deteriorations through long-term changes induced by natural and anthropogenic factors, needs to be continuously monitored for its environmental state and ecological processes. In this study we have analysed the changes of the sea temperature over the 25 years of period in the southern Black Sea to look at if there has been an effect of climate changes on the Turkish anchovy fishery. Conclusions derived through this present study, comparisons for assessing changes in the Black Sea ecosystem related to climate changes and Turkish anchovy fishery can be summarised as follows: It is clear that there has been an increase in temperature especially in the winter months in the southern Black Sea. Although the data set is not good enough for a complete analysis of the effect of global warming on anchovy fishery, together with ecological problems, pollution, over-fishing, oil prices and tendency in temperature increase over the years may be of the other reasons for anchovy crisis observed in the late 80's.