Foreword

Cooperation between the FAO Remote Sensing Center (now Environment and Natural Resources Service (SDRN)) and the Inland Water Resources and Aquaculture Service (FIRI) began in 1983 with the joint planning of the international training course “Remote Sensing Applications to Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture”, held at FAO headquarters in September 1984. Its aim was to raise awareness among fishery technical and management officers of the very positive remote sensing and GIS applications which were relevant to their work. In this framework and with the same objectives in the subsequent years training courses, pilot studies and operational projects have been jointly conducted worldwide.

A result of this longstanding cooperation has been the development and field testing, under operational conditions, of new remote sensing methodologies for specific fisheries requirements, such as aquaculture site selection, wetlands monitoring, shrimp farms inventory and monitoring and others. These methodologies have been widely disseminated to potential users in both the fields of fisheries and remote sensing through FAO publications.

The paper we present here aims to introduce a cost-effective new methodology for accurate inventory and monitoring of coastal aquaculture and fisheries structures.

Distribution:

FAO Members and Associate Members
FAO Fisheries Department
FAO Fisheries Officers in FAO Regional and Subregional Offices
FI Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture Mailing Lists