Thirty-year impact of a landing obligation on coupled dynamics ecosystem-fishers: individual-based modelling approach applied to Eastern English Channel

End-to-end models represent relevant tools to explore the probable evolution of fishers’ behaviour and subsequent knock-on effects on ecosystem structure under different fisheries management regimes. A major change in management regime was the landing obligation (LO), made legally binding within the 2013 European Union Common Fisheries Policy, without being fully implemented. In the Eastern English Channel (EEC), the LO is expected to impact fishing effort allocation and discards. A robust evaluation of the medium-term impacts of the LO requires a holistic view of coupled changes in the ecosystem and fisheries. A model, which coupled a fleet-dynamics model and a food web model (Object-oriented Simulator of Marine ecOSystEms), was developed and applied to the EEC socio-ecosystem to explore the ecological and economic effects of the LO on French bottom-trawl fisheries. Results show that the LO would have short-term negative effects on fishers’ revenue, induced by a spatial fishing effort reallocation. By protecting quota-regulated species, fishing activity becomes profitable after 25 years. However, our model shows that the LO would also induce an increase of the predatory pressure by cod and whiting on other species.