Publications

Dynamic, sandy environments are generally less vulnerable to mechanical stress compared to silty, low-energy habitats. Biogenic reef communities, however, may provide an exception to this. This study explores the physical, biological, and biogeochemical effects of bottom trawl fishing on a coastal ecosystem dominated by the tube-building polychaete Lanice conchilega. Two specific gear types, both used to exploit North Sea sole (Solea solea), ...

The Working Group on Fisheries Benthic Impact and Trade-offs (WGFBIT) develops methods and performs assessments to evaluate benthic impact from fisheries at regional scale, while con-sidering fisheries and seabed impact trade-offs.
In this report, new fishery benthic impact assessments are carried out for several sub-regions in the Mediterranean (Greek waters, South Adriatic Sea, Sicily waters). For other regions, updates of the whole ...

Binnen het project Benthis Nationaal werd de Europese procedure voor evaluatie van bodemimpact door visserij verder ontwikkeld en toegepast op Vlaamse vistuigen en visgronden. Dat gebeurde door specificaties van vistuig en gevoeligheid van habitats in rekening te brengen, en door de ontwikkeling van een nieuwe indicator. Hierbij werd de evolutie van de bodemimpact van de Vlaamse visserij in kaart gebracht. Ook laat de verfijning op maat van de ...

PROBYFISH developed a modelling framework and a support tool to assess whether proposals for regionalised management measures are in accordance with the objectives of the CFP. The project developed robust methods to define target and bycatch species and to divide the bycatch species into valuable bycatch species, that are generally retained on board and landed, and collateral bycatch species, that are generally discarded. The classification of a ...

The introduction of the Landing Oblogation, and its inclusion of HSE, has motivated stakeholders in several fisheries to begin research programmes, based on the guidance provided in this CRR, to investigate the survival potential of various components of the unwanted catch. This has increased our collective understanding of the stressors associated with the capture process, and, in turn, motivated efforts to mitigate these stressors to promote ...

Bottom trawls impact the seafloor and benthic ecosystem. One of the direct physical impacts is the mobilization of sediment in the wake of trawl gear components that are in contact with or are close to the seabed. The quantity of sediment mobilized is related to the hydrodynamic drag of the gear components and the type of sediment over which they are trawled. Here we present a methodology to estimate the sediment mobilization from hydrodynamic ...

Bottom trawls impact the seafloor and benthic ecosystem. To estimate the trawling impact, information is required about the dimensions of the gear that determine their footprint, sediment penetration depth and hydrodynamic drag that determines the amount of sediment mobilised in the wake of the trawl. Here we present the dimension of gear components of the different beam trawls used in the North Sea flatfish fishery including the traditional ...

This ICES workshop was planned and arranged in collaboration with the EU project ProByFish, from the EASME tender EASME/EMFF/2017/022.

“Target species” and “bycatch species” are common denominations in fisheries. However, while these concepts make qualitative sense for describing mixed fisheries, they are difficult to define quantitatively and the allocation of one species into one or another category remain largely subjective, and ...

Ecosystem effects of bottom trawl fisheries are of major concern. Although it is prohibited to catch fish using electricity in European Union waters, a number of beam trawlers obtained a derogation and switched to pulse trawling to explore the potential to reduce impacts. Here we analyse whether using electrical rather than mechanical stimulation results in an overall reduction in physical disturbance of the seafloor in the beam-trawl fishery ...