Vulnerabilities

Cold water species may decline particularly in small and shallow waters in southern Finland, while warm water species will benefit and spread further north. Changes in the salt concentration of the Baltic Sea could also have a great impact on its fish populations.In most cases, young fish will benefit from the warming of waters, with longer growing periods in the spring and autumn. This may increase the abundance of plentiful age groups, also increasing the amount of prey available for predatory fish (1).

It is estimated that climate change will increase leaching of nutrients into waters. This will increase eutrophication, which has already affected fish stocks in coastal waters. Generally, eutrophication increases the total fish biomass, but decreases species richness (1).

In the winter a shorter ice period and thinner ice will favour the most important mode of professional catching, trawling. On the other hand, it will hamper the wintertime seine catching of vendace as well as coastal net fishing. In summer, longer and more intense heat waves may increase fish diseases and parasites and make cultivation of fish more difficult. The most important cultivated fish is the rainbow trout, for which warming could be more a disadvantage than an advantage. If the climate warms significantly, there might be a need to farm a different fish species (1).

References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Finland.

1. Ministry of the Environment and Statistics Finland (2009)