Abstract
Aquatic food security is closely interconnected with multiple sustainable development goals (SDGs). Although assessing aquatic food security relies on understanding global trends in per capita production and consumption, there has been no comprehensive index to evaluate these trends in a country or regional context. Here, we develop a novel framework based on a comprehensive scoring system to assess changes in contemporary per capita aquatic food production and consumption trends (tendency, magnitude, and stability) across 177 countries in two time periods (1961–1990 and 1991–2019). Globally, over 50% of countries scored positive in production and consumption trends from 1961 to 1990. However, between 1991 and 2019, over half of the countries achieved negative production trend scores, while 68.4% of countries maintained positive consumption trend scores, accompanied by higher stability in the trends. Meanwhile, while global overall aquatic food production trend scores decreased significantly across both periods, the consumption trend scores did not decline substantially. This caused a notable overall increase in the positive disparity between consumption and production trend scores. We highlight an increasing disjunction between per capita consumption and production comprehensive trends while underscoring the collaborative synergy between aquaculture and trade as crucial factors that sustain the increase and improve stability of aquatic food consumption for most countries worldwide. The scores of global production and consumption trends of aquatic foods can provide valuable indicators for managers and policymakers to promote sustainable development and more equitable distribution of aquatic products, thereby improving future food security.