Dynamics of Fish and Marine Mammal Populations at the Romanian Black Sea Coast in the Past 10 Years and their Evolution Trends

Abstract

The last-decade changes in the Black Sea ecosystem have contributed to the deterioration of the structural and functional components of the marine ecosystem, which has had direct repercussions on reducing biodiversity and productivity, affecting the ecological balance and quality of life. These changes are mainly caused by the intensity of eutrophication, pollution of the sea and the over-exploitation of its natural resources. Fisheries resource management is an integrated process of gathering information, analyzing, planning, consulting, decision-making, allocating resources, and formulating and implementing regulations or rules governing fisheries to ensure the continuity of resource productivity and revenue and other objectives. This paper presents the dynamics of fish and cetacean populations on the Romanian Black Sea coast in the last decade (2008-2017). For most fish species on the Romanian seaside, the formation of fish aggregations and the availability of fish for fishing are strongly influenced by the variation in environmental conditions.