Abt Associates is supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Economics in developing a set of oceanographic, biological and economic models to estimate the economic impacts of ocean acidification on shellfish in the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf of Maine.

In this project, Abt is reviewing and synthesizing literature on:

• Regional oceanographic models,
• Impacts of acidification on economically important shellfish species, such as mussels, clams, and lobster; and
• The economic effects of reduced shellfish harvest.

With this literature review as a base, we are designing mathematical models to estimate the effects of ocean acidification and climate change on shellfish production in two regions of the U.S. We will link these biological models to economic models to estimate economic damages associated with these changes.