Empirical approaches for estimating impacts of life below water on food system productivity and sustainability

Blue foods support sustainable and healthy diets. However, agricultural activities and agrochemicals reduce water bodies’ ecological status undermining life below water. This chapter reviews methods to assess the impacts of human activities on life below water and how ecological degradation affects food systems’ productivity and sustainability. The findings are that the soil water assessment tool, hydrological simulation program Fortran and the Raven Hydrological framework models estimate the impacts of human agricultural activities on water quality. The maximum sustainable yield approach, lost potential yield, biological removal, Monte-Carlo catch, and the Bayesian Schaefer models are used to measure fish exploitation. The river habitat survey, morphological quality index and river hydromorphology assessment techniques are used to assess the ecological status of water bodies, which affect food system productivity. The methods apply to policymakers, program implementing partners and environmental agencies to promote sustainable life below water.