Geographic Information Systems in Fisheries

Chapter 7: Geographic Information Systems Applications in Coastal Marine Fisheries

Timothy A. Battista and Mark E. Monaco

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569575.ch7

The world’s marine resources are under multiple stresses from both human activities and natural environmental perturbations. The primary factors contributing to habitat loss and impacts on living marine resources include urbanization, fishing activities, increase in water temperatures, and nonpoint-source pollution (Haddad et al. 1996). As pressures on marine resources continue to increase, it has become evident that data required to make informed management decisions, bounded by policy aspects, are either lacking or not easily accessed. The collection, compilation, and synthesis of complex data sets are necessary steps in providing timely and useful information to environmental managers. Information technologies provide a suite of capabilities that can be used to organize, analyze, and disseminate the data and the information to the management community. The use of geographic information system (GIS) technology is a powerful tool to organize, visualize, and conduct assessments of geographic environmental data in support of the management of the world’s estuarine, coastal, and marine habitats, and associated living marine resources (Parker 1988; Haddad and Michener 1991).

A GIS is a computer system that stores and links nongraphic attributes or geographically referenced data with graphic map features to enable a broad range of information processing and display operations, as well as map production, analysis, and modeling (Antenucci et al. 1991). Geographic information systems often are perceived to be products (e.g., digital maps); however, it is important to recognize that not every GIS has the same functionality. A GIS is not simply technology, nor merely hardware and software, but rather it represents an organization of integrated data sets (Dangermond 1991). Geographic information systems are evolving into a primary tool for addressing coastal and marine resource use management (Haddad and Michener 1991), but it presently lacks adequate exposure or use in fisheries management (Isaak and Hubert 1997).