Joan Sala-Coromina
My work consist on the management, visualization and analysis of spatial data related to fisheries. The main objective is to provide a scientific spatial planning advice to administration fisheries management plans.
The main dataset I manage is VMS (Vessel Monitoring System) and landings data to analyze fleet behavior, fishing effort and catches distribution. We analyze these parameters in either the whole Catalan coast or for specific locations/fleets to include the spatial point of view to decision making. Field scientific sampling and other spatial data are also managed, analyzed and visualized.
We also work for the publication of geospatial online service to publish data so either scientific, administrative or fisheries communities can use these tools easily and dynamically.
Sessions
Fisheries' sustainability should be achieved by considering biological, social and economic aspects. To this end, different strategies should be followed, including co-management, which encourages scientists, governments, fishers and civil society to jointly manage the ocean resources. Since 2014, several co-management strategies have been implemented in Catalonia, a region with about 580 km of coast in the NW Mediterranean Sea. With the aim to transfer scientific knowledge to better manage the ecosystem, we present here the end-to-end (E2E) system from ICATMAR, the Catalan Institute of Research for the Governance of the Seas. The E2E system includes data collection, processing, analysis, publication and web visualization of bottom trawling and purse seine fisheries sampling data along the Catalan coast. In 2023, all these fisheries represented 85% of the total catch and 77% of the total fisheries revenue of the region.
During 5 years of data collection (2019-2023), the sampling program created a dataset of over 1,500 onboard samplings and 1 million sampled specimens of more than 470 different species. As the combination of environmental data with fisheries monitoring brings new approaches to assess the status of the ecosystem, the collected fisheries data, jointly with the daily fishing landings and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), are all visualized in combination with georeferenced sea habitats (EMODnet), and climate and sea conditions (CMEMS) on the web browser. An open website (www.icatmar.cat) offers the following data visualizations: geolocalized fisheries samplings together with the mentioned data sources, biomass distribution per port or season, and length-frequency charts per species (https://icatmar.github.io/VISAP). To better implement fisheries management strategies, these E2E information systems may be used as a tool to access high-quality open data, facilitate their comprehension and ease the dialogue between science, fisheries, policymakers and civil society.