Welcome to the GISFish NEWSLETTER

April 2008

Visit GISFish at http://www.fao.org/fishery/gisfish Web site Comments? Please write to GISFish-Comments@fao.org

Statistics

GISFish visitors: The total number of visits to the publications section of GISFish from 1 January 2008 to date totals over 15,000 and the overall number of publications downloads from GISFish have been over 8,000. GISFish Members: To date, there are 161 members from 58 different countries. African Water Resource Database: 300 different datasets have been downloaded from the AWRD archive from 1 January 2008 to date. The total number of downloads from around the world have been 5,551. The top ten datasets downloaded are: RWDB2 Surface Water Bodies Lake Tanganyika LandSat ETM+ Baseline Image Catalog Nominal 230 metre greyscaled hillshade with bathymetry RWDB2 Surface Water Bodies for Africa Color Shade of SRTM 30 arc second w/ETopo2 Bathymetry SRTM River-Surface Water Bodies VMap0 Landmass and Oceanic Island Polygons Consolidated VMap0 River-Surface Waterbody Network Greyscaled 15 arc second ETM+ Image Mosaic Harmonized DCW-VMap0 Surface Water Bodies Top Referenced URL from 1 January 2008 to date: Shellfish farming and Coastal Zone Management (CZM) development in the Marennes-Oléron Bay and Charentais Sounds (Charente Maritime, France): A review of recent developments For more details on statistics of the GISFish Web site see “site statistics” (Requires login).

New issues: Climate change and Aquaculture

Climate change:  There is an important role for GIS and remote sensing to improve understanding of where impacts of climate change on aquaculture, both positive and negative, are likely to occur, the pathways through which they occur, the types of aquaculture systems affected and who will be at greater risk. The Institute of Aquaculture in Stirling, UK. is building on previous climate related work developing GIS based models at global as well as localised scales to investigate current and future aquaculture potential under changing climatic conditions. As well as anticipating negative impacts this project will help future aquaculture take advantage of, and adapt to, changing conditions by giving an understanding of which aquaculture methods and species will be best suited to a given location in relation to a changing environment. This information will provide a highly useful resource for those involved in decision-making and policy formation in relation to future aquaculture development and climate change.

Forthcoming events

The Second GEOSS Asia-Pacific Symposium: The role of Earth observations in tackling climate change African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment XXI Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Fourth International Symposium on GIS/Spatial analyses in Fishery and Aquatic Sciences

Recently added content

Publications

Modelling the growth of Mytilus edulis by coupling a dynamic energy budget model with satellite derived environmental data Shellfish aquaculture vulnerability model Environmental planning for clam aquaculture at the largest Bay of northwest Mexico Modeling spawning dates of Hucho taimen in Mongolia to establish fishery management zones Proceedings: Third Symposium GIS/Spatial Analyses in Fishery and Aquatic Sciences Mapping the world in 3-D African Geo Information Research Network GEOSS: The Global Earth Observation System of Systems GlobCover - New portrait of Earth shows land cover as never before Climpag - Global grids, climate data, maps and tools A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems

Projects in progress

GIS tools for integrated management of coastal aquaculture The effects of climate change on aquaculture: Modelling vulnerability and adaptation capacity using Geographical Information Systems Application of Neuro fuzzy techniques to predict coastal physical sensitivity and vulnerability for marine cage culture Review of National Instruments for Aquaculture Development with a State level approach: Development of a GIS-based system for Michoacan, Mexico GIS-Based Model for Economic Marine Mollusc Production and Coastal Aquaculture Management in Pattani Bay Potential and Economic Viability of Aquaculture Development in Ghana Spatial modelling for freshwater cage location in the Presa Adolfo Mateos Lopez (El Infiernillo), Michoacan, Mexico Validation of a particulate waste dispersion model for sea cage fish culture

Discussion forum

Global Geospatial Xperts network

Training opportunities

Investigate the many opportunities for GIS self-training through open courseware. Many university courses, generically "Open Courseware", are freely accessible on-line, some of which deal with GIS. The exercises alone are worthwhile for the "how to" information.

GISFish © 2008