The main objective of QUEST-Fish is to elucidate how climate change will affect the potential production for global fisheries resources in the future and to estimate the added vulnerability of these effects on national and regional economies in fishery-dependent areas and on specific elements of the fishery system at different scales”. The project will be anchored on outputs from the QUEST Earth Systems Model currently under development and from coupled physical/biological ecosystem dynamic models (Global Coastal Ocean Modelling (GCOMS, see Module 1).

The second step will involve the use of production algorithms to scale potential fish production according to three hypotheses of increased complexity regarding the relationships between primary production, fish catches, population size structure and predator/prey ratios, largely based on ecosystem metabolic theory (see Module 2).

The third step involves using outputs of Module 1 into a spatially defined global fishmeal model which captures 30% of global fish catches, to investigate climate-driven market instabilities, with specific interest in the Scottish aquaculture farming industry as a case study (Module 3).

Finally, future vulnerabilities of national economies (and globally) to the consequences of predicted fish and fishmeal production scenarios will be estimated, including other drivers on fisheries, such as fuel dependency and cost and population growth (Module 4).