Abstract
Current fishing practices often do not allow adequate selection of species or sizes of fish, resulting in unwanted catches, subsequently discarded, with the consequent negative effects on both marine communities and fisheries profitability. The cross-analysis of density patches of potential unwanted catches and distribution of fishing effort can support the identification of spatial-temporal hot-spots in which the fishing pressure should be reduced to limit the amount of discards. The MinouwApp represents a technological and methodological framework to bring different, and structurally complex, sources of georeferenced data together into a simple visual interface aiming to interactively explore temporal ranges and areas of interest. The objective is to improve the understanding of fisheries dynamics, including discards, thus contributing to the implementation of discard management plans in a context of participative, ecosystem-based fisheries management strategies.
Highlights
Balancing commercial exploitation of marine resources and environmental protection represents one of the main global issues and probably the greatest challenge in fisheries science (Nelson and Burnside 2019)
In a context of climate change, ecosystem degradation and population growth that contribute to impair the effectiveness of management strategies (Sumaila et al 2011; Cheung et al 2013), credible advice for policy-making depends on ensuring timely access to relevant data resulting from public-funded research, as recommended by the European Commission (2012) and the “European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity” (ALLEA 2017)
One of the more recent initiatives of the European Community towards marine resource protection and fisheries optimization is represented by the strategy towards minimization of unwanted catches (UWC) through the implementation of a landing obligation (LO), i.e., the interdiction of discarding, for commercial species subject to output control measures such as the definition of total allowable catch (TAC) or minimum conservation reference size (MCRS)
Summary
Balancing commercial exploitation of marine resources and environmental protection represents one of the main global issues and probably the greatest challenge in fisheries science (Nelson and Burnside 2019). The information to be used should aggregate data from multiple sources, comprising (1) maps of high-density patches of potential UWC (see “Unwanted catches” section), such as nursery areas of demersal fish, spawning aggregations of pelagic species or areas of distribution of endangered species These maps can be obtained from routine trawl surveys (MEDITS: Mediterranean International Trawl Surveys, Bertrand et al 2002; ICES-IBTS: (Atlantic) International Bottom Trawl Surveys, Niels et al 2001), as well as national surveys carried out either in research and commercial vessels at the scope of the European Data Collection Framework (DCF) and, most importantly, fishery-dependent data obtained from vessel logbooks (2) habitat maps (“Habitat data” section), including sea bottom depth and substrate composition The MinouwApp integrates a series of geodatabases, independently obtained by different MINOUW teams of researchers with different methods and data sources, and layers of spatial information coming from other sources, including open-access data and results from EU research projects
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