LONG AND SHORT-TERM TRENDS OF MEDITERRANEAN FISHERY RESOURCES

Table of Contents

STUDIES AND REVIEWS No. 69
General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean

by

L. Fiorentini
IRPEM, Largo Fiera della Pesca
Ancona, Italy
and
J.F. Caddy and J.I. de Leiva
FAO, Via delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome, Italy

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Rome, 1997

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M-43
ISBN 92-5-104025-7

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© FAO 1997

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Fiorentini, L.; Caddy, J.F.; de Leiva, J.I. Long and short-term trends of Mediterranean fishery resources. Studies and Reviews. General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean. No. 69. Rome, FAO. 1997. 72p.

ABSTRACT

This study makes use of the recently published (FAO 1995) 45 year time series (1950-1994) of landings now available from FAO through the program FISHSTAT-PC (Version 5094/96 of March 1996) to analyse long-term trends and separate them automatically in a number of categories using an expert system for data analysis. Landing time series of the most important commercial species and group of species of both West (148 species) and East (137 species) Mediterranean have been processed with this program written in Pascal, in order to analyse and categorize long and short-term trends in these fisheries. Species trends have been categorized following a description of the different stages a fishery could pass through in time (new, rising, stable, declining, recovering and collapsed fisheries). Species have been also arranged into ecological or biological categories (estuarine, benthic and coastal, pelagic, large pelagic, demersal and slope resources), and differences between West and East Mediterranean trends were sought for the same and different species. A ranking of the most important commercial species using 1992 catches, as well as by 1992 total value of landings, have been carried out, and a comparison between West and East Mediterranean fisheries has been provided.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREPARATION OF THIS DOCUMENTpdf


1. INTRODUCTIONpdf


2. METHODOLOGY pdf

2.1 Discrimination of long-term trends
2.2 Tables

3. RESULTS OF THE ANALYSIS pdf

3.1 Interpretation
3.2 A comparison between West and East Mediterranean fisheries
3.3 A tentative ranking of species by total value of landings

4. DISCUSSIONpdf

4.1 Trends in Mediterranean fisheries compared with fisheries of other semi-enclosed seas
4.2 How to take long-term trends into account in fisheries management ?

5. REFERENCESpdf


ANNEXESpdf

TECHNICAL ANNEX
Pre-treatment of data The numerical filters used in this study
Recent short-term trends
DATA ANNEX
A/ West Mediterranean. Tables and figures
B/ East Mediterranean. Tables and figures

ANNEX 1. Assignation of species to key ecological or biological categories

GFCM STUDIES AND REVIEWS ISSUEDpdf