Led by Heriot-Watt University
Overview: The North Sea is one of the world’s most heavily exploited marine areas. Its shared fish stocks support valuable demersal mixed fisheries, including cod, haddock, whiting, saithe, hake, and anglerfish, fished by multiple countries using different gear types.
Challenges: Climate change is shifting fish distributions northward, complicating quota management. Mixed fisheries face bycatch, discarding, and choke species, which current landing obligations do not fully address.
Solutions: Use climate-informed ecosystem models to track and forecast stock shifts, improve advice for mixed and choke-species fisheries, and develop bycatch-reducing gear and technologies.
Cod, haddock, whiting, saithe, hake, plaice, sole
Demersal trawlers
Climate-informed stock advice, improved management of mixed and choke-species fisheries, and gear innovations to reduce bycatch and discarding
Species: Mackerel, herring and blue whiting
Fleet: Pelagic trawlers and purse seiners
Case Study Lead: Sjókovin
State: Overfishing, climate change, and political tensions threaten some of the most sustainable and nutritious fish stocks in the Northeast Atlantic...
Species: Hake, megrim, blue whiting, horse mackerel, anglerfish
Fleet: Demersal trawlers
Case Study Lead: CSIC
State: In the Bay of Biscay, AI and ecosystem modelling are transforming how fisheries adapt to climate change and unlock the potential of emerging species...
Species: Cod, haddock, saithe, redfish, calanus
Fleet: Industrial
Case Study Lead: Matis
State: Iceland’s vital seafood sector faces mounting climate pressures - see how innovation in gear, strategy, and sustainability tools could reshape Europe’s second-largest fishing nation.
Species: Picarel, bogue, red mullet, spinefoot, albacore, swordfish, bluefin tuna
Fleet: long liners and small-scale
Case Study Lead: DMFR
State: Cyprus’s traditional fisheries face climate threats and invasive species - discover how tech and innovation are helping protect their future and coastal way of life.
Species: striped red mullet, seabream species, bogue, lionfish, silver-cheeked toadfish read sea goatfish
Fleet: small-scale fisheries using nets, traps and longlines
Case Study Lead: AUA
State: In Greece, small-scale fishers battle climate change, invasive species, and economic decline...