Fishery-pollution interactions: A modelling approach to explore the nature and incidence of economic damages

This paper develops a simple bioeconomic model of fishery-pollution interaction in order to examine the effects of toxic discharges on a hypothetical commercial fishery. The consequences of acute and chronic pollution scenarios are considered, and the model is used to generate results in respect of fish stock biomass, profitability and catch. Economic damage to the natural resource is measured as the lost in situ value of the commercial harvest, and it is shown that the magnitude of these damages depends on the speed at which fishing effort responds to the reduction on biological productivity that the pollution incidents cause.