The high resolution fishing effort layer for European trawlers in the period 2014 -2015 was derived from around 150 million AIS positions reports from EU fishing vessels above 15 m of length, operating in FAO areas 27, 34 and 37, in the period between October 2014 and September 2015. Each AIS message provides the position of the vessel, its speed and a timestamp, at intervals of five minutes. These messages were classified as either related to fishing or to steaming through a classification algorithm based on the analysis of individual vessels’ speed profiles. This classification approach proved to be sufficiently robust in the case of trawlers, that represent the majority of vessels above 15 m of length.
The authors would like to thank MSSIS, courtesy of the Volpe Center of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Navy, and MarineTraffic for providing the AIS data used in this study.
Alfredo Alessandrini; Anton Paulrud
; Fabio Mazzarella; Fabrizio Natale; Giacomo Chato Osio; Maurizio Gibin; Michele Vespe
Vespe, Michele; Natale, Fabrizio; Gibin, Maurizio; Alessandrini, Alfredo; Mazzarella, Fabio; Osio, Giacomo Chato; Paulrud, Anton (2026): AIS derived high resolution fishing effort layer for European trawlers of more than 15 meters long 2014-2015. European Commission, Joint Research Centre [Dataset] doi: 10.2905/JRC.HY0SJ8R PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/jrc-fad-ais1415
The fishing intensity raster is available for download.
Several research initiatives have been undertaken to map fishing effort at high spatial resolution using the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS). An alternative to the VMS is represented by the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which in the EU became compulsory in May 2014 for all fishing vessels of length above 15 meters. The aim of this paper is to assess the uptake of the AIS in the EU fishing fleet and the feasibility of producing a map of fishing effort with high spatial and temporal resolution at European scale. After analysing a large AIS dataset for the period January-August 2014 and covering most of the EU waters, we show that AIS was adopted by around 75% of EU fishing vessels above 15 meters of length. Using the Swedish fleet as a case study, we developed a method to identify fishing activity based on the analysis of individual vessels’ speed profiles and produce a high resolution map of fishing effort based on AIS data. The method was validated using detailed logbook data and proved to be sufficiently accurate and computationally efficient to identify fishing grounds and effort in the case of trawlers, which represent the largest portion of the EU fishing fleet above 15 meters of length. Issues still to be addressed before extending the exercise to the entire EU fleet are the assessment of coverage levels of the AIS data for all EU waters and the identification of fishing activity in the case of vessels other than trawlers.
Information and understanding of fishing activities at sea are fundamental components of marine knowledge and maritime situational awareness. Such information is important to fisheries science, public authorities and policy-makers. In this paper we introduce a first map at European scale of EU fishing activities extracted using Automatic Identification System ship tracking data. The resulting map is a density of points that identify fishing activities. A measure of the reliability of such information is also presented as a map of coverage reception capabilities.
| From date | To date |
|---|---|
| 2014-10-01 | 2015-09-30 |
