MODELS FOR ESTIMATING POTENTIAL FISH YIELDS OF AFRICAN INLAND WATERS. CIFA Occasional Paper No. 16.
With the publication of the Source Book for the Inland Fishery Resources of Africa (SIFRA) information on more than 900 inland waters of Africa became available. As information on fisheries under varying exploitation is limited for a large number of African waters, a useful approach to assess potential fish yields of these waters is through comparative studies of similar fisheries for which information is available.
An attempt was made to update existing yield models on African waters. Analysis of SIFRA clearly revealed a lack of data on morphometric and edaphic characteristics for most African inland waters.
Models described in this paper for lakes, reservoirs, rivers and floodplains are based on a single morphometric characteristic. Although the reliability of these models is limited, a first estimate of the potential fish yield can be made.
As long as data on catch and effort are unreliable and morphometric and limnological data are limited for most African inland waters, improvement of the models will be difficult.