Uso del GIS per l'analisi spaziale dello sforzo di pesca e dei cambiamenti stagionali nelle strategie di pesca a strascico

Ciardelli R, Lari D, Fortunati L, Mammini U, Serena F, Abella A

GIS  Database applications 

The collection of information through interviews to fishermen at the landings generally produces a set of data related to various aspects: active boats, used gear, fishing areas, fishing time, landed species and relative weight, fishing effort, etc. If this operation is periodically collected, the amount of data rapidly increases. Normally, such data is analysed with tools which do not consider the geographical position of each single datum and which produce statistical or synthetic information that is not geographically correlated. The developed system described here is based on a geographical information system (GIS) which can manage and analyse these kind of data by referring them to the respective geographical positions, thus producing efficient summaries, both in tabular and graphic form. The system makes available a set of functions with which users can operate dynamically on the set of data, by selecting from the various parameters that characterise the data (time period, fishing gear, species, ...). The results obtained furnish temporal and spatial information on various aspects of a fishery: a better understanding of fishing strategies, composition and distribution of the active fleet, distribution patterns of the main exploited stocks and, in general, they constitute a solid starting point for more detailed studies focusing the management and the development of the fishery activities. The system is based on ArcView GIS software and Access DBMS. The current version makes use of data related to the fishing activities in a specific area and time period, but it can be generalised to historical data sets relating to any geographical context.