Fig 1.
Conceptual schematic of the data, analyses, and processes underlying the SubsidyExplorer toolkit.
The first box (steps 1a—1d) illustrates the process of combining data sources to create a dataset that defines the activities of the global industrial fishing fleet—described in the text in subsection “Defining the characteristics of the global industrial fishing fleet”. The second box (steps 2a—2c) represents the process of mapping subsidy reform proposals submitted to the WTO on to the global vessel database—to allow for their effects to later be modeled—and is described in the text in subsection “Modeling subsidy reform proposals”. The products created in the first two series of steps feed into SubsidyExplorer, but the component analyses are not contained within the toolkit itself. The final two boxes contained within the bolded outline represent the user interface and server of the SubsidyExplorer tool, and the happenings that occur therein. Steps 3a—3d illustrate the process of running the model and generating results when a user selects a subsidy reform proposal—described in the text in subsections “Bioeconomic projection model” and “Characterization of fishing fleets and their behavior”.
Fig 2.
The first page of SubsidyExplorer provides contextual information on the purpose of the app, as well as a summary of high-level results. This page presents the user with three options of how to proceed. The first option, “Learn How Subsidy Reform Could Help Fish”, takes users to the app’s primary feature: a decision-making framework for comparing different subsidy reform proposals. The second option, “Explore More About Fisheries Subsidies’’, takes users to a section devoted to data exploration. Finally, the third option, “Discover How This Tool Was Made”, houses resources and more information on the methods underlying the tool. Republished from www.subsidyexplorer.com under a CC BY license with permission from UCSB, original copyright 2021.
Fig 3.
Learn How Subsidy Reform Can Help Fish: Policy comparison portal.
The first section of SubsidyExplorer executes the tool’s primary feature: a decision-making framework for comparing different subsidy reform proposals. Within this section, the user can (A) select from proposals that have been submitted to the WTO, (B) design their own policy, (C) run a global bioeconomic projection model, and (D) evaluate the global and regional effects of the selected policy on different biological and economic indicators. Republished from www.subsidyexplorer.com under a CC BY license with permission from UCSB, original copyright 2021.
Fig 4.
Explore More About Fisheries Subsidies: Data exploration portal.
The second section of SubsidyExplorer serves to satisfy the tool’s secondary objective: to allow users to view and interact with data on fisheries subsidies in the context of other relevant fisheries information. Within this section, the user can (A) explore data on subsidy provisioning by country, (B) learn more about the makeup of fisheries subsidies provided by different countries (as well as other types of fisheries and demographic data), (C) compare absolute and relative metrics across countries, and (D) explore patterns of fishing effort globally. Land boundaries depicted in (A) and (D) were made with Natural Earth (free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com). Marine boundaries depicted in (D) were made using the Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase, version 10 [49]. Republished from www.subsidyexplorer.com under a CC BY license with permission from UCSB, original copyright 2021.
Fig 5.
Global simulation model results (2050) for all pre-populated subsidy reform proposals included in SubsidyExplorer.
In panel (A), changes in biomass, catch, fishing mortality, and revenue (%) are shown for different proposal types relative to a business as usual (BAU) scenario in which subsidy provisioning continues unchanged from 2018. The type of reform proposal is denoted by the color. Proposals may pertain to reforming subsidies to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (“IUU”) fishing, subsidies to fishing on overfished stocks (“Overfished”), subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing (“OFOC”), or to multiple types (“Other & Multiple”). The “Ambitious Reform” scenario represents complete removal of all subsidies with the potential to be capacity-enhancing and thus represents the upper bound of effects seen from this model. Panel (B) shows changes in biomass (%) relative to BAU on the x-axis and changes in catch (%) relative to BAU on the y-axis for each individual proposal. Changes in fishing mortality (%) relative to BAU are denoted by the size of the point. The type of reform proposal is still denoted by the color of the point.