Abstract
Scotland’s seas support diverse commercial fisheries, including both inshore and offshore fishing fleets. The offshore fleet (overall vessel length ≥15m) is covered by Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) offering bi-hourly location data which can be linked to landings information. On the other hand, Scottish inshore fishing vessels do not carry VMS, and their activity was recently mapped using an interview based approach with fishery stakeholders (the ScotMap project). Increasing competition over marine space highlighted the need for comprehensive spatial information on fishing activities. Combining commercial and stakeholders’ data can provide a Scotland-wide spatial representation of fisheries to assist in marine planning for renewable energy, conservation and fisheries management. VMS data combined with landings were used to describe the spatial patterns of landings of the Scottish offshore fleet. The ScotMap data were analysed to derive monetary value distribution maps for the inshore fleet. ScotMap and VMS layers were added together to produce a combined data set, spatial information for landings value for the whole Scottish commercial fishing fleet. This provides a new perspective which can inform decision making in various policy areas including marine spatial planning, sustainable development of offshore renewable energy, nature conservation and fisheries management.
The Extended Abstract is available here.
**No Video is Available for this Session