131 results
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-004
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Aquatic Animal Health Subprogram: the Neptune Project- a comprehensive database of Australian aquatic animal pathogens and diseases

Aquatic animal health experts from the Queensland Museum (QM) have been completing work on a parasite and disease database called Neptune. Work on Neptune has taken place at QM in Brisbane since May 2013, resulting in the completion of major improvements to the database. These will allow Neptune to...
ORGANISATION:
Queensland Museum
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 1999-342
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

A study of seafood consumption in Perth and the development of a guide to targeted promotion

This study was initiated in response to industry requests for information on the consumption of fish and seafood in Perth, because of widespread concerns about static or declining sales levels, to provide recommendations on how to increase retail sales profitably. It was designed to repeat much of...
ORGANISATION:
Ruello and Associates Pty Ltd
Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2022-141
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

SIA early mover micro project - integrated wave energy microgrid design

Aquaculture operators are predominately reliant on diesel generation for their ocean-based operations, while shore-based facilities like hatchery production and processing use grid supply electricity, typically with diesel backup power. The growing pressures on the industry necessitates a transition...
ORGANISATION:
Climate KIC Australia (for Australian Ocean Energy Group)
Communities
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-218
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Indigenous fishing subprogram: Building the Capacity and Performance of Indigenous Fisheries

This project was commissioned by the Indigenous Reference Group, an advisory committee to the FRDC for matters related to Indigenous fishery research, development and extension (R&D). The project sought to build the capacity and performance of Australia’s Indigenous fisheries. It...
ORGANISATION:
Ridge Partners
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-002
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Aquatic Animal Health Subprogram: Identifying the cause of Oyster Oedema Disease (OOD) in pearl oysters (Pinctada maxima), and developing diagnostic tests for OOD

The goal of this project was to investigate the cause of oyster oedema disease (OOD) in Australian pearl oysters so that diagnostic tests and management practices for the disease can be developed. OOD has been associated with mortalities in some pearl oyster farming areas. However, the cause of...
ORGANISATION:
Macquarie University

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.
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2014-242
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Commercialising the production of Cobia in Australia

This project is a collaboration between the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) and the Cobia aquaculture sector, predominantly Pacific Reef Fisheries (PRF). It was undertaken to consolidate the aquaculture in Australia of Cobia, a species offering considerable potential as a...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries (QLD)
SPECIES
Communities
PROJECT NUMBER • 2014-005
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

RAC WA: The application, needs, costs and benefits of Habitat Enhancement Structures in Western Australia and cost effective monitoring methods

Habitat Enhancement Structures (HES) developments are increasing in Australia and worldwide providing many benefits to the environment and different user groups. With this rapid growth there are still large knowledge gaps evident in relation to HES. This project investigated the application, needs,...
ORGANISATION:
Recfishwest
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-201
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Development of a harvest management, governance and resource sharing framework for a complex multi-sector, multi-jurisdiction fishery: the south-east Australian ‘western’ snapper stock

This report involves the ‘Western Victorian Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) Stock’ (WVSS) which supports arguably the most important marine fin-fish fishery for Victoria. While the majority of the harvest is by Victorian fisheries, this stock is a straddling stock shared with South...
ORGANISATION:
Agriculture Victoria
SPECIES
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