Taiwan is located at the West Pacific and has an excellent marine environment of ECS, TS, and Kuroshio waters with the abundant marine life. The fishery industry support the abundant sea food for food security in Taiwan, but the total fish biomass in 2021 was subsequently decreased less than 50% compare to the level of 1980 era. In recent years, the concepts of sustainable development have become key elements in national and international discussions and planning with the priority goals of “the future we want”, expressed as a global aspiration for a prosperous and sustainable future. The rippling fishing influenced by climate variability for sustainable development is also pay attention especially grey mullet fishery in winter time.

In this work, we used the grey mullet fishery data from 1954-2020 to examine the variations in temporal and spatial distribution using sea surface temperature and checked the possible impact of projected climate change too. The results revealed a decreasing trend in wintertime sea-surface temperature from 24°C in November to 18°C in February and the migration of the 20°C isotherms to north of approximately 24°N from 2001 to 2020, resulting in high grey mullet catches occurring more frequently at higher latitudes. In addition, the decreasing trends in grey mullet catches and fishermen populations have caused the main fishing method for grey mullet to change from purse seine to gillnet after the 1980s. Due to the subsequent decreased catch, the types of fleet with fishing methods in the coastal waters of Taiwan were changed from the purse seiner with two boats before 1986, to the gill net and trawl net as the abundance was at the low level between 1989 to 2010. Gill net was the most dominating fishing method with the lower operational cost and mullet abundance increased since 2013. Thus, fishery-based adaption of the resilience between purse seiner and gill net fleet conducted from fishermen responding to the mullet catch fluctuation, climatic index and cost benefit is identified.