What does sustainable yield mean in the context of environmental science?
1 Answer
Sustainable yield refers to the amount of take/harvest/capture that can occur while maintaining the population's or ecosystem's stability and function.
Explanation:
Sustainable yield refers to the amount of take/harvest/capture that can occur while maintaining the population's or ecosystem's stability and function. If your yield is sustainable, the base of your population remains unaffected and you are able to exploit that resource regularly and over the long term.
The maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is the maximum amount that can be taken without depleting the resource or population over the long-term. For example, the MSY for a forest is the amount of trees that can be removed while allowing the forest to naturally replace those trees.
The image below uses fisheries as an example. If people fish at or below the maximum sustainable yield, this population of fish is able to sustain itself. If we fish over the MSY, our yield is higher than the population can handle and it isn't able to recover. Overfishing will eventually lead this population of fish to collapse.
