Ecosystem-Scale Biodiversity in Fisheries Life Cycle Impact Assessment

The impact of fisheries was recently operationalised in Life Cycle Assessment, accounting for effects on individual exploited species at both regional and global scales. Now, this emergent pathway is expanded to the ecosystem scale by incorporating additional indirect impacts associated with fishing through the integration of ecosystem dynamics. The methodology combines a novel coupling of dynamic ecosystem modeling and species sensitivity distribution curves to quantify fisheries effects on marine biodiversity, using an adaptation of the USEtox effect factor modeling that assesses community-scale ecotoxicity impacts. Innovative elements include the incorporation of indirect effects through a fished community via predator–prey interactions, and a bidirectional threshold interval that captures both potential population depletion and expansion dynamics resulting from exploitation. A proof of concept is presented in the Adriatic Sea, deriving novel midpoint characterization factors for 26 exploited functional groups, with impacts reported in potentially affected fraction (PAF) units. Impact values are spread over 6 orders of magnitude (1.58× 10–7 PAF small/medium rays −2.16 × 10–1 PAF small pelagic fish), validating the operability of the approach. Methodological choices and assumptions introduced by the novel approach are discussed. The original combination of modeling tools employed in this characterization approach contributes to the progressive enhancement of the fisheries impact pathway and how biodiversity loss is considered in life cycle impact assessment.