This study investigates the temporal associations between environmental and socioeconomic variables and their impact on capture fisheries production, aiming to guide sustainable fisheries management and policy development. To achieve this, various statistical techniques were employed to uncover these relationships. The Mann-Kendall test indicated increasing trends in mean annual temperature, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), domestic credit to the private sector, agricultural land use, and population density, with no trend in freshwater withdrawals. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test revealed non-stationarity in all variables except temperature. Cross-correlation analysis with pre-whitening showed negative associations between mean annual temperature and population density with fisheries production, with delays of one and 13 years, respectively, though these were not statistically significant. GHG emissions showed a negative association with fisheries production at a six-year lag (r = -0.40), while domestic credit was negatively correlated (r = -0.255) at the same lag. Agricultural land use exhibited a significant positive correlation (r = 0.44) at a five-year lead. These findings highlight that fisheries sustainability is increasingly threatened by climate change, population growth, and land use changes. The study underscores the need for integrated fisheries management approaches that account for interdependencies between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems while aligning with climate adaptation.
Keywords: climate variability; cross-correlation function; capture fisheries; trend analysis, ARIMA models