Environmental Systems and Societies · Topic 4: Water

ES4.3 — Aquatic food production systems

Environmental Systems and Societies · SL / HL · syllabus-mapped notes

1. Aquatic producers and rising demand

   Phytoplankton and macrophytes as the base of aquatic food webs, the organisms humans eat, and why demand is increasing.

2. Overexploitation and fishery collapse

   Destructive harvesting methods and how overexploitation has collapsed fisheries such as the Grand Banks cod.

3. Maximum sustainable yield and climate stress

   MSY and the yield/fishing-effort graph for setting quota caps, plus climate change and ocean acidification stressing ecosystems.

4. Managing exploitation: policy, MPAs, aquaculture

   Policy and consumer measures, marine protected areas, and aquaculture's expansion weighed against its environmental impacts.

5. Productivity, stock assessment and MSY risks

   How productivity links to stratification and nutrients, measuring fish stocks and harvest rates, and the risks of fishing at MSY.

6. Recovery, UNCLOS and marine mammal ethics

   Stakeholder cooperation to restore stocks, the UNCLOS exclusive economic zone and high seas, and the ethics of hunting marine mammals.