Analyzing spatio-temporal evolution of global fishing effort provides an insight
into mechanisms driving fishing effort temporal and spatial expansions. It also enables
contrasting fishing effort spatio-temporal trends against the well-documented fact of
overall global depletion of major commercial fish stocks. This thesis presents analysis of
the evolution and spatial distribution of port-based global fishing effort from 1970 to
2000. A fishing effort spatial distribution prediction model, involving qualitative filter
criteria and quantitative weighting of fishing grounds, is developed to predict the spatial
distribution of port-based global fishing effort within the EEZs of countries. Countries of
the world were grouped into four regions for regional analysis and then pooled for an
overall analysis of global spatio-temporal trends.
The results of the analyses showed that, on global scale, effective fishing effort
grew by 600% in the period between 1970 and 2000. This growth led to reduction of total
catch per unit of effort (CPUE) by 80% over the same period. The results of the
prediction of spatial distribution of port-based global fishing effort showed that the
distribution of global fishing effort covered the continental shelves of the world's ocean
in the 1990s, with intensely fished areas clustered along the coasts of major fishing
nations. On top of offshore range expansion, the results revealed that the centers of
massive fish catch and effort concentrations have gradually moved southward by 20° and
10° respectively. Additionally, fuel consumption rate of port-based global fishing fleets
was estimated, using an independent estimate of global fisheries fuel consumption. The
result gave a fuel consumption rate of 0.1-0.3 liters per horsepower-hour. When this rate
is applied to time-series of global fishing fleet, the result showed that the fuel
consumption of global fishing fleet grew by 85% between 1970 and 2000. / Science, Faculty of / Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/30871 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Gelchu, Ahmed Abda |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
| Relation | 46430 |
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