12 results
Adoption
PROJECT NUMBER • 2022-063
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

WRL Communication, Education and Engagement Program

This report encapsulates the achievements and outcomes of the Western Rock Lobster Council's (WRL) Communication, Education, and Engagement Program (Project 2022-063), which aimed to enhance community understanding, trust, and acceptance of the Western Rock Lobster industry. Through innovative...
ORGANISATION:
Western Rock Lobster Council Inc (WRLC)
Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-197
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Developing FRDC’s 2020-2025 RD&E Plan

This report covers the second of two CSIRO contributions to the project FRDC 2018-197. This project was reviewing FRDC research objectives through a process that developed alternative scenarios of possible futures relevant to Australian fisheries. Discussed here is the development of a...
ORGANISATION:
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC)
Adoption
Adoption

Trials of oceanographic data collection on commercial fishing vessels in SE Australia

Project number: 2022-007
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $347,802.00
Principal Investigator: Ian Knuckey
Organisation: Fishwell Consulting Pty Ltd
Project start/end date: 31 Jul 2022 - 30 May 2025
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Australia’s fisheries span a large area of ocean. Australia has the world’s third largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), with an area of over 8 million km2. This zone contains mainly Commonwealth managed fisheries, with State jurisdictions mainly in coastal waters up to the 3 nautical mile limit. Australia's total wild-catch fisheries gross value of production is $1.6 billion, of which 28% is from Commonwealth fisheries and 72% from the smaller coastal inshore fisheries managed by state jurisdictions. The wildcatch fisheries sector employs about 10,000 people across Australia (https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/research-topics/fisheries/fisheries-and-aquaculture-statistics/employment).

The commercial fishing industry has a network of thousands of vessels working mainly in inshore waters around Australia. They can supply a potential platform for extensive and fine scale spatial and temporal monitoring of the waters of the continental shelf (0-1200m), from the surface to the ocean floor. Given that their livelihoods depend on it, they have a keen understanding of oceanographic conditions with respect to fish behaviour, feeding and spawning and the various oceanographic factors that may influence this. In some fisheries (e.g. surface tuna longlining), fishers eagerly seek and use readily available fine-scale oceanographic data such as sea surface temperature and sea level, to improve their targeting and achieve higher resultant catch rates. For many other fisheries, however, it is the fine-scale sub-surface oceanographic conditions (feed layers, thermoclines, temperature at depth etc) that have a critical influence on their fishing dynamics. Unfortunately, this type of oceanographic data is far less readily available. Although fishers and scientists know these factors are important, the time series of fine scale spatial and temporal data relevant to fishery operations is not available to include in stock assessments. As a result, it is often assumed that variations in catch rates reflect changing stock abundance, when it may simply be a result of changing oceanographic conditions.

Marine scientists collect a vast range of oceanographic data using satellites, subsurface drones, and static and drifting buoys. Sea surface data, however, is much easier and more cost-effective to collect at high spatial and temporal resolutions than sub-surface data. Hence, understanding of sub-surface oceanographic conditions tends to be derived from modelling more than actual measurement. This may be sufficient at a wide-scale global or continental level, but it is not adequate at the fine-scale spatial and temporal resolution required for fisheries management.

The use of commercial fishing gear as a research data platform has been increasing in popularity internationally (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.485512/full). A number of groups in Europe have been doing this for a decade (e.g Martinelli et al 2016), and New Zealand are also now involved (https://www.moanaproject.org/te-tiro-moana). However, this approach has yet to be implemented in Australia in a coordinated way. In particular, our approach dictates open access data served through the IMOS Australian Ocean Data Network (www.aodn.org.au) that can be collected once and used many times.

In this project we intend to instrument seafood sector assets (e.g Trawl Nets, longlines, pots) with fit-for- purpose quality-controlled (QC'd) temperature/pressure sensors to increase the sub-surface temperature data coverage around Australia’s shelf and upper slope regions (0-800m) at low cost. Not only will this assist in the collection of data at relevant spatial and temporal scales for use by fishers, but it will also provide a far more extensive level of QC’d data to oceanographers in near real time (NRT) for evaluation and ingestion into data-assimilating coastal models that will provide improved analysis and forecasts of oceanic conditions. In turn, this will also be of value to the fishing sector when used to standardise stock assessments.

Martinelli, M., Guicciardi, S., Penna, P., Belardinelli, A., Croci, C., Domenichetti, F., et al. (2016). Evaluation of the oceanographic measurement accuracy of different commercial sensors to be used on fishing gears. Ocean Eng. 111, 22–33. doi: 10.1016/J.OCEANENG.2015.10.037

Objectives

1. Effective installation and operation of oceanographic data collection equipment on network of commercial fishing vessels using a range of common fishing gear
2. To provide QC’d data direct to fishers in near real-time to assist in habitat characterisation and the targeting of effort
3. To cost-effectively increase the spatial resolution of sub-surface physical data collected in Australia’s inshore, shelf, upper-slope, and offshore waters by fitting commercial fishing equipment from a variety of gear types with low-cost temperature/pressure sensors
4. To make the QC’d temperature depth data publicly available through the IMOS-AODN portal for uptake and use in ways that support safe maritime operations the sustainable management of marine resources, and improves understanding of drivers of change.

Article

Final Report • 2024-11-07 • 7.45 MB
2022-007-DLD.pdf

Summary

Working with IMOS and oceanographers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Fishwell Consulting engaged its established networks across the Australian commercial fishing community to harness the capacity of commercial fishing vessels in environmental data acquisition. Deployment of temperature/depth sensors on commercial fishing vessels was shown to augmentand complement more expensive data collection platforms (e.g. ocean gliders, remote operated vehicles, Argo floats, dedicated research vessels) to provide much needed sub-surface temperature data to improve ocean circulation models and forecasting capacity. In proof-of-concept trials conducted over twelve months (from May 2023), more than 30 fishing vessels and their fishing gear were equipped with temperature sensors and data transmission equipment. These trials yielded more than 2.8 million data points from the sea surface to 1,214m depth considerably expanding existing data records. In particular, waters previously poorly observed, including the Great Australian Bight, Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, and the Gulf of Carpentaria, yielded valuable sub-surface temperature data.

Valuing WA smaller commercial fisheries across the supply chain

Project number: 2022-038
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $149,681.00
Principal Investigator: Anders Magnusson
Organisation: BDO EconSearch
Project start/end date: 18 Oct 2022 - 24 Aug 2023
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The proposed study will produce information about the supply-chain economic contribution of selected small scale fisheries in Western Australia, as well as a method that can be applied to making these estimates for other fisheries.

The proposed approach includes making three separate estimates of the supply-chain contribution of selected fisheries using three different levels of information: (1 – minimal cost) published fishery production data and a regional economic model that describes inter-regional flows using published statistical data, (2 – minimum consultation) the same as 1 but also including a workshop with key stakeholders to inform the assumptions, and (3 – maximum data) the same as 2 but also collecting primary data from businesses along the supply-chain. As such, the estimates produced for the selected fisheries using approach 3 will be of high quality and the recommended method described in the guidelines will be informed by a comparison of the cost and performance of undertaking the analysis using each level of information.

Three approaches to obtain supply chain data will be utilised and compared in this project. Below summarises the set of data sources within each approach.

Minimal cost approach
Fishery production statistics: Published production statistics (State of the Fisheries 2020/21*) or data request to DPIRD
Fishery financials and employment: Published profiles (if available) or matched fisheries (as per 2017-210)
Supply-chain flows: Analysis of regional input-output tables, taken as given
Supply-chain financials and employment: Analysis of regional input-output tables

Minimal consultation approach
Fishery production statistics: Published production statistics (State of the Fisheries 2020/21*) or data request to DPIRD
Fishery financials and employment: Published profiles (if available) or matched fisheries (as per 2017-210)
Supply-chain flows: Estimated by workshop with stakeholders, starting from input-output table estimates
Supply-chain financials and employment: Analysis of regional input-output tables

Maximum data approach
Fishery production statistics: Published production statistics (State of the Fisheries 2020/21*) or data request to DPIRD
Fishery financials and employment: Primary data
Supply-chain flows: Primary data
Supply-chain financials and employment: Primary data

* Newman, S.J., Wise, B.S., Santoro, K.G. and Gaughan, D.J. (eds) 2021, Status Reports of the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of Western Australia 2020/21: The State of the Fisheries, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Western Australia.

Key to estimating the supply-chain flows for the low-data approaches, we will apply the direct coefficients from input-output tables within our RISE models to the value of each fishery to estimate the value of each node of the supply chain for each fishery. The input-output model tells us for each dollar of sales from the fishing sector there are sales to other sectors (i.e. processing, wholesale trade, retail trade, food services). Subsequently, those sectors also have sales to other sectors. By applying these coefficients in sequence we can estimate the value of each node of the supply chain. Data for input-output models are held by BDO and ultimately sourced from publications by ABS, RBA, ATO and other public organisations.

Under the minimal consultation approach, we will refine the supply-chain map developed under the minimal cost approach by eliciting judgement by key stakeholders. These stakeholders will have an idea of the size of the supply chain nodes and will be able to confirm or adjust the values according to their knowledge.

Under the maximum data approach, we will interview businesses along the supply chain in order to collect data to value each supply chain node. We will elicit the value of each business and the number and size of businesses at each node. Information on the number and approximate size of businesses at each supply chain node will be sought from industry participants at the workshop. Contact details for businesses willing to be involved in the interview process with also be sought at the workshop.

Objectives

1. To recommend a method to map and value the supply chain of small scale fisheries in WA and to estimate the economic contribution at each node of the supply chain, including options for addressing gaps in data availability.
2. To develop an extension to the Australian Fisheries and Aquaculture Industry 2017/18 Practitioner Guidelines, for assessing supply chains and economic contributions of small-scale fisheries.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-6458962-0-6
Author: BDO EconSearch
Final Report • 2023-09-01 • 1.62 MB
2022-038-DLD.pdf

Summary

This study aimed to produce information about the economic contribution of the supply chain of selected small-scale fisheries in Western Australia (WA), as well as a method that can be applied to making these estimates for other fisheries. Substantial research has been completed to estimate the economic contribution of commercial fisheries to Australia and its regional communities, and to produce guidelines that practitioners can apply to update and regionalise these estimates. However, past research has largely focused on the ‘upstream’ activity (the flow-on effects from commercial fishing from expenditure on inputs to fishing and expenditure of income derived from fishing). Little work has been done to describe the ‘downstream’ activity (what happens to the seafood product throughout the supply chain after it has been landed, that is, as the product moves from the point of landing to final consumers), the focus of this study. This study makes three separate estimates of the economic contribution of a selection of case study fishery supply chains using three different levels of information. It then compares the sets of results for each case study to make conclusions about the quality versus cost of the approaches. 

Tasmanian Seafood Awards: RD&E Category sponsorship - 2024 & 2025

Project number: 2022-188
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $10,000.00
Principal Investigator: Julian J. Harrington
Organisation: Seafood Industry Tasmania
Project start/end date: 29 Sep 2023 - 29 Nov 2025
Contact:
FRDC

Need

-Judging panel
- Social Media Kit (Images and supporting texts for pre and post event)
- Verbal acknowledgement as sponsors on the night
- Short speech about FRDC and award presentation
- Logo & acknowledgement in article in Tasmanian Seafood Industry News
- Banner and marketing material at the awards
- Website listing & link
- Tickets to awards
- Social media recognition
- Advertisment opportunity in Tasmanian Seafood Industry News
- Inclusion in media release

Industry