Bottom trawl fishing footprints on the world’s continental shelves

Details

• Journal Title:
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States
• Personal Author:
  Amoroso, Ricardo O. ; Pitcher, C. Roland ; Rijnsdorp, Adriaan D. ; McConnaughey, Robert A. ; Parma, Ana M. ; Suuronen, Petri ; Eigaard, Ole R. ; Bastardie, Francois ; Hintzen, Niels T. ; Althaus, Franziska ; Baird, Susan Jane ; Black, Jenny ; Buhl-Mortensen, Lene ; Campbell, Alexander B. ; Catarino, Rui ; Collie, Jeremy ; Cowan, James H. ; Durholtz, Deon ; Engstrom, Nadia ; Fairweather, Tracey P. ; Fock, Heino O. ; Ford, Richard ; Gálvez, Patricio A. ; Gerritsen, Hans ; Góngora, María Eva ; González, Jessica A. ; Hiddink, Jan G. ; Hughes, Kathryn M. ; Intelmann, Steven S. ; Jenkins, Chris ; Jonsson, Patrik ; Kainge, Paulus ; Kangas, Mervi ; Kathena, Johannes N. ; Kavadas, Stefanos ; Leslie, Rob W. ; Lewis, Steve G. ; Lundy, Mathieu ; Makin, David ; Martin, Julie ; Mazor, Tessa ; Gonzalez-Mirelis, Genoveva ; Newman, Stephen J. ; Papadopoulou, Nadia ; Posen, Paulette E. ; Rochester, Wayne ; Russo, Tommaso ; Sala, Antonello ; Semmens, Jayson M. ; Silva, Cristina ; Tsolos, Angelo ; Vanelslander, Bart ; Wakefield, Corey B. ; Wood, Brent A. ; Hilborn, Ray ; Kaiser, Michel J. ; Jennings, Simon
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; AFSC (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) ; AKR (Alaska Region)
• Description:
  Bottom trawlers land around 19 million tons of fish and invertebrates annually, almost one-quarter of wild marine landings. The extent of bottom trawling footprint (seabed area trawled at least once in a specified region and time period) is often contested but poorly described. We quantify footprints using high-resolution satellite vessel monitoring system (VMS) and logbook data on 24 continental shelves and slopes to 1,000-m depth over at least 2 years. Trawling footprint varied markedly among regions: from <10% of seabed area in Australian and New Zealand waters, the Aleutian Islands, East Bering Sea, South Chile, and Gulf of Alaska to >50% in some European seas. Overall, 14% of the 7.8 million-km2 study area was trawled, and 86% was not trawled. Trawling activity was aggregated; the most intensively trawled areas accounting for 90% of activity comprised 77% of footprint on average. Regional swept area ratio (SAR; ratio of total swept area trawled annually to total area of region, a metric of trawling intensity) and footprint area were related, providing an approach to estimate regional trawling footprints when high-resolution spatial data are unavailable. If SAR was ≤0.1, as in 8 of 24 regions, there was >95% probability that >90% of seabed was not trawled. If SAR was 7.9, equal to the highest SAR recorded, there was >95% probability that >70% of seabed was trawled. Footprints were smaller and SAR was ≤0.25 in regions where fishing rates consistently met international sustainability benchmarks for fish stocks, implying collateral environmental benefits from sustainable fishing.
• Keywords:
  Dredging (Fisheries) Habitat
• Source:
  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Oct 23; 115(43): E10275-E10282.
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802379115
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC6205437
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Rights Information:
  Other
• Compliance:
  PMC
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f868c48482437d0d50aa9bea7ac29f116037b2b333cb0c8f2666bdb3961b5968eea3cc7a39891cec6183cf26e3ba138b38c249033b315f1dab8054a35d341193
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/24377/noaa_24377_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.12 MB ]