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Ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management to date have lacked a quantitative spatial understanding of habitat impacts from fishing. Understanding such ecological impacts in part requires knowledge of benthic structure and sensitivity. We compared two approaches to calculate and map spatially explicit habitat impacts for twelve different fisheries in 21 broad benthic classes in Canada's Pacific. By fishery, bottom trawling had the highest sum impact score across benthic classes, and bottom trawl and bottom longline generally scored highest per unit area. Soft shelf, which was the most extensively fished benthic class (33,373 km2 of a total 454,183 km2 study area), had the highest cumulative impact score, followed by the slope benthic classes (16,315 km2). Canyons and slope benthic classes had the highest impact scores per unit area. We recommend our approach as one that facilitates a regional understanding of benthic habitat impact by individual fisheries, as well as of cumulative impact for all bottom and demersal fishing activities. This assessment also highlights the regional paucity of habitat data required for more detailed analyses. Such habitat impact assessments have utility in informing fisheries assessments for eco-certification schemes, and in the mitigation of benthic habitat impacts through marine spatial planning efforts. |
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