Baltic Sea (Central)

Climate and human activities have induced major changes in the Baltic Sea during the past century. Amongst others, fish catches have substantially increased since the first decades of the 20th century and eutrophication has resulted in higher biological productivity of the system since the 1950s. Long-term trends (2001-2010) reveal significant declines in two indicators (proportion of predatory fish and trophic level of landings) and significant increase in three indicators (life span, biomass stability and inverse fishing pressure). The pie diagram regarding the relatively recent state (2008-2010) suggests that the proportion of predatory fish, and the mean life span of fish is very low.  However, the status of the cod population has significantly improved in recent years, due to effective management enforcement and lower fishing mortalities. The only indicator which has received high score in the Human Dimension was management while all three other indicators scored very low.