Assessing the impact of policy changes in the Icelandic cod fishery using a hybrid simulation model

Most of the Icelandic cod is caught in bottom trawlers or longliners. These two fishing methods are fundamentally different and have different economic, environmental, and even social effects. In this paper we present a hybrid-simulation framework to assess the impact of changing the ratio between cod quota allocated to vessels with longlines and vessels with bottom trawls. It makes use of conventional bioeconomic models and discrete event modelling and provides a framework for simulating life cycle assessment (LCA) for a cod fishery. The model consists of two submodels, a system dynamics model describing the biological aspect of the fishery and a discrete event model for fishing activities. The model was run multiple times for different quota allocation scenarios and results are presented where different scenarios are presented in the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. The optimal allocation strategy depends on weighing the three different factors. The results were encouraging first-steps towards a useful modelling method but the study would benefit greatly from better data on fishing activities.