The correlation between spatial distribution of fisheries and resources – integrated spatial and bio-economic fisheries management evaluation (MSPTOOLS) (39417)

It is necessary to establish adequate management strategy evaluation (MSE) tools to evaluate the impacts of fisheries and other use of the sea in a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral context. Such evaluations are necessary to achieve the goals of the EU Common Fishery Policy and to meet the demands for protection of sensitive habitats under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, as well as to meet the demands from other marine sectors on occupation of specific sea areas for other uses under the EU Marine Spatial Planning Directive.

The MSPTOOLS project provides new and improved quantitative methods for evaluating stock abundances and distributions with high resolution in time and space by integrating different types of quantitative information as well as by linking biological and bio-economic models and evaluation tools. This has involved development of better tools, methods and integrated models to describe the resources, the fisheries and sensitive habitats/species distribution in relation to each other and identify sustainable fishing areas and conservation areas.

The project has developed a statistical framework (LGNB), which combines commercial fisheries and scientific survey data, to ultimately improve the understanding of the spatio-temporal abundance dynamics of marine harvested species. Preliminary results to an economic extension of the model was included in the project. Furthermore, the project provides the methodology and out-line of the coupling process between the project model and the bio-economic management strategy evaluation tool DISPLACE. Finally, the project has set up an initial pilot study to combine fishery-independent research survey information on catch rates as well as commercial fishery catch and effort information from the targeted Danish Norway pout fishery.

The model improvements provided by the project has a high impact and news-value to both the current and future advisory and scientific stock evaluation development work within the scientific and management advisory communities under the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES). As such the models, their improvements and their implementation provides significant new fisheries and marine spatial management scientific knowledge, as well as improved management advisory methods, directly to and relevant also for the Danish fisheries industry and all stakeholders within the fisheries sector besides the ICES communities.

The MSPTOOLS work has to high extent been targeted towards model application and implementation of the methodological developments made under the project through the ICES management advisory system and community, as well as the ICES scientific community and network.

Funding  
The project is funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and Danish Fisheries Agency.

Research area: Fisheries Management
Research area: Marine Living Resources