April 27, 2020 โ While considerable resources are invested in seasonal forecasts and early-warning systems for food security, not enough is known about El Niรฑoโs impact on the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, even though its name was given in the 1600s by fishers off the coast of Peru.
To remedy that, FAO is publishing, in partnership with French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD France), the report El Niรฑo Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects on fisheries and aquaculture. This report captures the current state of knowledge on the impacts of ENSO events across sectors, from food security to safety at sea, from fish biology and fishing operation to management measures.
El Niรฑo is widely known as a climate pattern that begins over the Pacific Ocean but wreaks havoc on ecosystems in land and water far away from its origin. Its consequences include droughts and major harvest shortfalls in large swatches of Africa and Indonesia, forest fires in Australia, and serious flooding in South America.
ENSOs are often simplified to reflect two main phases: El Niรฑo, an anomalous warming phase in the central and/or eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, and an opposite cooling phase called La Niรฑa.