Fisheries Theme Team

Essential Fish Habitat

Human and non-anthropogenic activities threaten the environments of our marine and Great Lakes waters. Habitats important to stocks of finfish and shellfish species exist in riverine, estuarine, coastal, and offshore continental shelf waters within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone as well as in waters of the Great Lakes. A long-term threat to the viability of commercial and recreational fisheries is the continuing adverse impacts of various human activities and natural hazards on our marine and Great Lakes aquatic habitats.

The U.S. Congress, in re-authorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act through the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA) (16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) in October 1996, mandated the identification of habitats essential to Federally managed marine finfish and shellfish species and the identification of measures to conserve and enhance these habitats. The SFA defined essential fish habitat (EFH) as "those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity." This has been further interpreted by NOAA to include aquatic areas and their associated physical, chemical, and biological properties needed to support sustainable fisheries and healthy ecosystems involving managed species.

Since Congressional intent in the SFA was to prevent further loss of marine, estuarine, and other aquatic habitats, the eight regional Fishery Management Councils (Councils) have had to amend their fishery management plans (FMPs) to describe and identify EFH for all life stages of managed species, provide information on fishing and non-fishing activities that may adversely impact EFH, recommend measures to conserve and enhance EFH, and minimize, to the extent practicable, adverse impacts on EFH caused by fishing activities. The SFA also requires consultations between the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and any Federal agency whose actions may adversely affect EFH.

Although the EFH mandate in the SFA was directed towards the conservation and management of habitat for Federally managed fisheries, it has served to heighten awareness and stimulate similar efforts by state resource agencies and interstate Marine Fisheries Commissions responsible for near-shore and estuarine waters and by state, Federal, and international bodies responsible for Great Lakes waters.

The SFA stipulates that the Councils must designate EFH by means of scientific evaluation of the best available information on species distribution and abundance and habitat-productivity relationships. EFH regulations provide a hierarchical framework for gathering and organizing available information for each life stage for every managed species based on the following four levels:

• Level 1: Presence/absence distribution data are available for some or all portions of the geographic range of the species;
• Level 2: Habitat-related densities of the species are available;
• Level 3: Growth, reproduction, or survival rates within habitats are available;
• Level 4: Production rates by habitat are available.

Information required for Levels 3 and 4 is generally unavailable for most species. Consequently, EFH for most FMPs is being described on the basis of Levels 1 and 2.

There are huge gaps in knowledge regarding habitat preferences and requirements of the life stages of many finfish and shellfish species, the role played by various habitats in the fishery production process, and the impacts of various anthropogenic and natural activities on habitat structure and function. In order for Councils, NMFS, interstate Marine Fisheries Commissions, and other Federal and state regulatory bodies and agencies responsible for either marine or Great Lakes waters to adequately manage habitats, these gaps in knowledge must be filled through expanded research and extension efforts.

The importance of addressing the requirement for and present deficiency in knowledge regarding fisheries habitat, and the need to consider habitat to a greater extent in fisheries management, has received considerable regional and national attention in the last several years in scientific symposia and conferences and popular and peer-reviewed publications. In response to this deficiency and need, the National Sea Grant College Program has committed nearly $3 million during FY 2000 and 2001 to fund a National Strategic Investment (NSI) in Fisheries Habitat to support innovative research, education, and outreach projects addressing critical and high priority problems related to the following fisheries habitat issues of regional or national importance in U.S. coastal and Great Lakes waters:

• Identification, quantification, synthesis of existing information, and understanding of the linkage between fisheries and their habitats:
• completion of life history inventories of managed species;
• habitat factors influencing distribution, abundance, growth, species interactions, and survival for prediction of fisheries abundance trends and yields;
• development of conceptual ecosystem models and their functional attributes incorporating habitat;
• establish and quantify linkages between habitat and fisheries production;

• Effects of anthropogenic activities on habitat of managed fisheries:
• fishing;
• aquaculture and stock enhancement;
• point and non-point source pollution;
• coastal and urban development;

• Impacts of natural hazards on fisheries habitat:
• relative scales of natural variability;
• global climate variation;
• storm activity, flooding, drought, and erosion;

• Restoration of habitat:
• artificial reefs;
• estuarine dredging;
• salt marsh ecology;
• marine reserves;
• area management strategies;
• wetland rehabilitation;
• shoreline and streambank stabilization;
• spawning habitat rehabilitation.

This NSI constitutes the largest, new funding effort within NOAA in support of fisheries habitat research. It specifically encouraged collaboration with multiple investigators and Federal agencies such as NMFS, OAR’s National Undersea Research Program (NURP) and Environmental Research Laboratories, National Ocean Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and Environmental Protection Agency, and the incorporation of applications to education, outreach, socioeconomics, and resource management directly beneficial to stakeholders.

The response to the request for proposals (RFP) for the NSI announced November 1, 1999 resulted in 174 preproposals representing perhaps 800-1,000 investigators and corresponding to nearly $52 million in requested funding for the two-year period. This reaction is indicative of a tremendous interest in the area of fisheries habitat, and clearly demonstrates that funding needs and requests substantially exceed available resources. University researchers and extension personnel within the 29 university-based Sea Grant programs and their more than 300 institutions, in collaboration with colleagues in state, Federal, and private agencies and organizations, have a demonstrated capability, capacity, and interest to immediately launch a diverse array of research and outreach activities aimed at filling gaps in scientific knowledge and applying these results for the benefit of stakeholders.