The users in fishing are active in Fish stock management, Fishing fleets, Fishery distribution logistics, Aquaculture / fish farms, Coastal management agencies. In addition, the users include Fisheries authorities / policy makers.
The marine environment in particular is relevant to fishing. Fishing fleets move to the fishing grounds to catch fish. Finding them is challenging. However, fish shoals can be directly visible from above. Navigating to the fishing grounds can be risky: Coastline and shallows may pose a risk to ships. Additionally, skippers may have to deal with challenging weather conditions at sea. Environmental threats to the fishing grounds are oil slicks and other types of pollution. A problem from an economical perspective and for adhering to catch quota is illegal fishing. Noumerous opportunities exist to support fishing with EO information.
To support an ecosystem-based approach for fisheries management, EO images with global and daily systematic coverage with high-resolution images can help in identifying potential fishing zones and to assess fish stocks. They help assessing and understanding changing abundancy and spatial distribution of exploited fish stocks. Therefore, they analyse various key environmental parameters that can be detected with satellite remote sensing. This includes sea surface temperatures (SSTs), sea surface height anomalies, and sea surface colour revealing the abundance of chlorophyll a. This relates to phytoplacton production that is directly related to total fish landings. Additionally, EO can detect harmful algal bloom. A further threat to sustainable fish stocks management are illegal fishing. Where localization of licensed fishing vessels and fleet management services are supported by EO to avoid overexplotation and enable recovery of fish stocks. EO complements identification, detection and tracking of vessels with SAR and optical remote sensing.