147 results
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-090
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Improving early detection surveillance and emergency disease response to Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS) using a hydrodynamic model for dispersion of OsHV-1

Rapid predictive capability of viral spread through water during an aquatic disease outbreak is an epidemiologist’s dream, and up until now has not been achievable. A biophysical particle tracking model for Ostreid herpesvirus 1 microvariant (OsHV-1) that causes POMS was developed to determine...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2014-032
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Improved understanding of Tasmanian harmful algal blooms and biotoxin events to support seafood risk management

The 2012 Tasmanian biotoxin event represents a paradigm shift for seafood risk management in Tasmania and Australia as a whole. The causative dinoflagellates are extremely difficult to identify by routine plankton monitoring, and are toxic at very low cell concentrations (50-100 cells/L). Sampling...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-212
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Establishing an industry recovery strategy for the Area 3 zone of the Western Australian Abalone Managed Fishery

The Southern Seafood Producers (Western Australia) Association in conjunction with the Abalone Industry Association of Western Australia hosted a two-day workshop (the workshop) at the Swan Yacht Club in East Fremantle on the 12th and 13th of June 2019. The aim of the workshop was to...
ORGANISATION:
Southern Seafood Producers (WA) Association

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.

El Nemo South East: Quantitative testing of fisheries management arrangements under climate change using Atlantis

Project number: 2010-023
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $338,202.00
Principal Investigator: Beth Fulton
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 31 Jul 2010 - 29 Jun 2014
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The south-eastern waters of Australia are predicted to be the most vulnerable area to global change, due to changes in East Australian, Leeuwin and Flinders Currents and associated increases in water temperatures; modification of local ocean processes, like coastal upwelling; sea-level rise driven threats to inshore habitats, which have critical fish nursery roles; and other threats to inshore habitats posed by simultaneous increases in salinity, river flow and stratification of shallow water bodies. Together these shifts will impact species composition of functional groups and communities in the region. Moreover it will affect the sustainability of the fisheries (commercial and recreational) and aquaculture resources, which will have social and economic flow-on effects for the businesses and communities; particularly as they will be exacerbated by changes in market conditions, input costs and food prices as global change affects consumer purchasing behaviour changes. This means there is a strong need for information that casts light on exposure and vulnerability of the region and identifies robust management and adaptation strategies. Major benefits will only be achieved if there is a means of synthesising information across all topics (ecological, economic and social) to provide system level quantitative assessments and insights. This requires a method that can easily address changing socially and economically driven human behaviour, environments, ecological components, productivity and distributions and cross-jurisdictional human activities and management. Atlantis is uniquely placed in that it can directly address all of these critical factors. The SEAP program can also benefit from the years of development that have resulted in a working Atlantis model for the SE region.

Objectives

1. Assess what the challenges are for recreational and commercial fisheries and aquaculture management arrangements in managing the interactions between fish and fishers within a changing climate
2. Identify potential barriers (for both Government and industry) to adaptation
3. Inform changes to management arrangements that provide for sustainable management of the resource, provide for efficient operation of markets, foster industry adaptation and enable businesses to manage challenges and take advantage of any emerging opportunities all in the face of uncertainty that will remain associated with climate impacts for decades to come
4. Determine how to detect significant attribute changes to inform a management response again in the face of considerable on-going uncertainty
5. Assess what the challenges are for recreational and commercial fisheries and aquaculture management arrangements in managing the interactions between fish and fishers within a changing climate
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2014-214
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

RAC WA: Investigating critical biological issues for commercial Greenlip Abalone sea ranching in Flinders Bay, Western Australia

Keywords: Hydrodynamic, dispersal modelling, drift algae, nutritional value, health, physiological stress Summary: The Ocean Grown Abalone Pty Ltd sea ranch is the first abalone sea ranching venture to have been commercialised in Australia. The abalone are grown on patented concrete...
ORGANISATION:
Curtin University
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