Relevance of European small-scale fisheries trapped by data limitations

Abstract

Landings by species and their associated fishing effort are crucial for stock assessment and estimating fishing mortality. While large scale fisheries (LSF) have historically received more attention, interest in standardized data from small scale fisheries (SSF) has increased significantly over the last decade. This study characterizes SSF and ongoing fishing activity data collection across 17 European countries, from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, using 2019 as a reference year. The analysis reveals that 88% of commercial active fishing vessels are smaller than 15 m in total length and that such SSF (as considered in this study) accounts for over 83% of the total days at sea and 12% of the landed weight. However, fishing activity data collection for SSF is less comprehensive compared to LSF. Vessels larger than 10 m typically report their fishing activities in logbooks and sales notes, whereas for

Keywords

small-scale fisheries (SSF); data collection; data sources; sampling; census; fishing capacity; fishing effort; landings and economic value; best-practice guidelines

Published in

ICES Journal of Marine Science
2025, volume: 82, number: 8, article number: fsaf130
Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PRESS

SLU Authors

• Carlshamre, Sofia

  • Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ringdahl, Katja

  • Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Prista, Nuno

  • Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Fish and Aquacultural Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaf130

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/143459