Combining Fisheries Monitoring with Remote Sensing for Achieving Sustainability: From Data Collection to Web Visualization

Abstract

Developing data-driven fisheries management strategies is essential to overcome the global decline of fishing stocks, as stated by EU Data Collection Framework. In this work, we present the tools and techniques from ICATMAR, Catalan Institute for Ocean Governance Research, for data collection, processing, analysis, publication and web visualization for bottom trawling fisheries management in the North-Western Mediterranean. Within 4 years of collected data (2019-2022), the sampling program created a dataset of over 900000 sampled specimens accounting for almost 25 tons of catch. As the combination of remote sensing data with fisheries monitoring offers new approaches for assessing the ecosystem, the collected fisheries data, which are continuous trawling samplings, daily fishing landings, and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), are visualized in combination with georeferenced sea habitats (EMODnet), climate and sea conditions (CMEMS) on the web browser. An open website offers these data visualizations: geolocalized bottom trawling samplings adding the mentioned data sources, distribution of biomass per port or season, and length-frequency charts per species (https://icatmar.github.io/VISAP). This information system aims to fulfill the gaps in the scientific community, administration and civil society to access high-quality open data for fisheries management, following the FAIR principles, and enable answering applied research questions