Spatio-Temporal Fish Catch Assessments Using Fishing Vessel Trajectories and Coastal Fish Landing Data from around Jeju Island

• Published in: Sustainability Vol. 13; no. 24; p. 13841
• Main Authors: Owiredu, Solomon Amoah, Kim, Kwang-Il
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.12.2021
• Subjects: Algorithms; Assessments; Climate change; Climate models; Commercial fishing; Commercial species; Data mining; Environmental planning; Fish; Fisheries; Fisheries management; Fishery resources; Fishing; Fishing equipment; Fishing gear; Fishing vessels; Fishing zones; Landing gear; Machine learning; Marine ecosystems; Marine protected areas; Marine resources; Ports; Prediction models; Resource management; Temporal distribution; Vessels; Jeju Island
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su132413841

While pressure on marine ecosystems leading to declines in global fish catches have been attributed to excessive fishing and to unregulated and unreported fishing, existing management practices have yet to fully address these declines. Estimation of spatial and temporal distribution of fisheries resources and the extent of fishing impacts on marine ecosystems using vessel trajectories has become central in recent studies. This study proposed the use of trajectories of 771 Korean coastal and offshore fishing vessels and one-year fish landing data to estimate variations in commercial fish species, vessel, and fishing gear activity distributions in the waters around Jeju island. A set of standards were applied to identify individual fishing tracks of major gears and uniformly distributed catch to fishing segments of trajectories to produce spatio-temporal distributions of catch, fishing activities, and vessel reliance on fishing grounds at a fine spatial scale. The method identified reference points that can inform management at local and regional scales. We discuss the opportunities of combining larger datasets collected over a longer period and applying predictive modeling techniques in making extensive assessments, including climate change impacts on fishing activities that can inform resource management and marine spatial planning.