Quantification and mitigation of bottom-trawling impacts on sedimentary organic carbon stocks in the North Sea

Abstract

The depletion of sedimentary organic carbon stocks by the use of bottom-contacting fishing gear and the potential climate impacts resulting from remineralization of the organic carbon to CO2 have recently been heavily debated. An issue that has remained unaddressed thus far regards the fate of organic carbon resuspended into the water column following disturbance by fishing gear. To resolve this, a 3D-coupled numerical ocean sediment macrobenthos model is used in this study to quantify the impacts of bottom trawling on organic carbon and macrobenthos stocks in North Sea sediments. Using available information on vessel activity, gear components, and sediment type, we generate daily time series of trawling impacts and simulate 6 years of trawling activity in the model, as well as four management scenarios in which trawling effort is redistributed from areas inside to areas outside of trawling closure zones. North Sea sediments contained 552.2±192.4 kt less organic carbon and 13.6±2.6 % less macrobenthos biomass in the trawled simulations than in the untrawled simulations by the end of each year. The organic carbon loss is equivalent to aqueous emissions of 2.0±0.7 Mt CO2 each year, roughly half of which is likely to accumulate in the atmosphere on multi-decadal timescales. The impacts were elevated in years with higher levels of trawling pressure and vice versa. Results showed high spatial variability, with a high loss of organic carbon due to trawling in some areas, while organic carbon content increased in nearby untrawled areas following transport and redeposition. The area most strongly impacted was the heavily trawled and carbon-rich Skagerrak. Simulated trawling closures in planned offshore wind farms (OWFs) and outside of core fishing grounds (CFGs) had negligible effects on net sedimentary organic carbon, while closures in marine protected areas (MPAs) had a moderately positive impact. The largest positive impact arose for trawling closures in carbon protection zones (CPZs), which were defined as areas where organic carbon is both plentiful and labile and thereby most vulnerable to disturbance. In that scenario, the net impacts of trawling on organic carbon and macrobenthos biomass were reduced by 29 % and 54 %, respectively. These results demonstrate that carbon protection and habitat protection can be combined without requiring a reduction in net fishing effort.