ORCID

Abstract

Coastal and estuarine ecosystems are vital as essential fish habitat (EFH). Given accelerating climate- and human-driven environmental change, conserving these habitats is increasingly urgent to ensure the sustainability of marine populations and their associated fisheries. This paper examines how scientific knowledge is being used to support management of EFH in the USA, Europe, and elsewhere. We find that while scientific knowledge to identify and quantify important habitats has rapidly increased, the transfer of this knowledge to management practice has been limited and slow, resulting in important habitats being vulnerable to degradation. Through an international review of EFH concepts and their application in science, policy, legislation, and management, we suggest the following four lessons learned to guide this knowledge transfer and better integration of EFH in fisheries and coastal zone management: (i) clearly define EFH, (ii) estimate ecosystem services at relevant (populations and fisheries) scale, (iii) build on success, and (iv) expand dialog to better integrate EFH into conservation.

Publication Date

2026-06-27

Publication Title

ICES Journal of Marine Science

Volume

83

Issue

6

ISSN

1054-3139

Acceptance Date

2026-04-28

Deposit Date

2026-08-10

Funding

Filipe Martinho was supported by the FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., in the framework of the Project UID/04004/2025—Centre for Functional Ecology—Science for the People & the Planet, with DOI identifier 10.54499/UID/04004/2025 ( https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/04004/2025 ) and LA/P/0092/2020—Associate Laboratory TERRA ( https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0092/2020 ), and by the LIFE SeagrassRIAwild project (LIFE22-NAT-PT-SeaGrassRIAwild; EU LIFE Action Grant). Julia Friese was supported by the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries via the project GenMeMo (funding code: 2819102 × 20). Karen van de Wolfshaar was supported by Wageningen Marine Research. David Eggleston was partially supported by NC State University. Kenneth Rose was partially supported by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Elliot J. Brown was funded by the Danish Recreational Fishers Fund—Marine Fiskepleje. Benjamin J. Ciotti was supported by the School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth. This work was developed within the context of the ICES working group WGVHES (Working Group on the Value of Coastal Habitats for Exploited Species). The authors thank both ICES and all participants of the working group 2019–2025. The authors would like to thank Nikolaus Probst for his help in supplying information regarding the situation in Germany. We would also like to thank the Editor, Jonathan Grabowski, Joel Fodrie, and the two other anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Filipe Martinho was supported by the FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., in the framework of the Project UID/04004/2025—Centre for Functional Ecology—Science for the People & the Planet, with DOI identifier 10.54499/UID/04004/2025 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/04004/2025) and LA/P/0092/2020—Associate Laboratory TERRA (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0092/2020), and by the LIFE SeagrassRIAwild project (LIFE22-NAT-PT-SeaGrassRIAwild; EU LIFE Action Grant). Julia Friese was supported by the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries via the project GenMeMo (funding code: 2819102 × 20). Karen van de Wolfshaar was supported by Wageningen Marine Research. David Eggleston was partially supported by NC State University. Kenneth Rose was partially supported by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Elliot J. Brown was funded by the Danish Recreational Fishers Fund—Marine Fiskepleje. Benjamin J. Ciotti was supported by the School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth.

Keywords

coast, conservation, ecosystem-based fisheries management, essential fish habitat, restoration

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Share

COinS