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Fisheries & aquaculture in Lebanon - Briefing note

Year of publication 2021

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 3p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) The Lebanese coastline is 220 km long with a narrow continental shelf ‎‎(less than 1 200 km2 with up to 200 m depth), which rarely extends beyond an 8 km strip from ‎the coast, except for North Lebanon. Lebanon's large hydrological network includes a dozen of rivers running ‎through the coast, which consequently plays an important role in the quality of ‎marine coastal waters. The Lebanese coast hosts 44 fishing ports and landing sites that harbor around 3 000 all-artisanal, small-scale fishing vessels. ‎The fisheries of Lebanon are traditionally based on trammel nets, longlines and purse seine nets that capture roughly 3 000 - 3 500 tons annually (2 800 tons in 2018). Main species caught are sardines, anchovies and seabreams. Since the production of the fisheries sector cannot cover the national demand, Lebanon has been dependent ‎on fish imports, which averaged 35 000 tons in recent years, but dropped to 12 800 tons in 2020. ‎Freshwater aquaculture has been practiced since the 1930s. Most production, from the 300 farms, was rainbow trout (1 000 tons in 2018), which are grown ‎in semi-intensive growing systems, mainly along Assi River, that were introduced in 1958. Moreover, the only onshore marine farm in Aabdeh, Akkar produces annually 15 tons of shrimps. ‎‎

Language English

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