Fishery Analyst Online Catch Maps

Background 

In the interest of dissemination of data products to fisheries management agencies, the fishing community, and the general public the Multispecies Research Group provides online access to our catch data via an interactive mapping application, Fishery Analyst Online (FAO).FAO is a web GIS application aiming to effectively analyze and visualize temporal and spatial patterns of fishery dynamics.  The Date and Location of fishing, the Species caught in biomass or numerical abundance, and Individual Lengths are available to query at the Species level.  Criteria to query on the Individual level are Date, Length, Sex and Maturity Stage among other characteristics in special cases.All the query, analytical and configuration functionalities are grouped on the left side of the interface.  Various types of output are organized in separated tabs at the top, including a map view, a chart view and a help page.  A navigation toolbar provides the tools to navigate within the map (panning, zooming in and out and moving to full, previous and next extent).  The chart view allows users to toggle between Catch by Cruise, Catch by State, Catch by Cruise and State, Length-Frequency Histogram, and Catch by Month. (FAO User’s Manual, Mappamondo GIS, 2012)

ChesMMAP and NEAMAP Data Collection

The Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program (ChesMMAP) monitors adult and sub-adult fish populations in the Chesapeake Bay, USA.  The Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (NEAMAP) monitors the nearshore Western Atlantic habitat from Rhode Island to North Carolina, USA.  The catch at each station is sorted by species and size class.  On-deck processing generates data corresponding to the Species level query:  Aggregate Weights and Counts.  The Length-Frequency Histogram in the chart view tab illustrates the Individual Lengths at the Species level.  Further processing below deck generates Individual level query data:  Sex, Maturity Stage, Spawning Condition, and additional reproductive/disease criteria in species cases.  These special cases are blue crab egg stages, lobster presence of shell disease, and lobster presence of berries (lobster eggs). 

Metadata for Query Variables

Data Retrieval

The query boxes are arranged in a hierarchy.  Each subsequent query box will populate with criteria based on prior choices. 

1. First, select either ChesMMAP or NEAMAP
2. Select one or more Cruise(s).  For NEAMAP, Sept refers to Fall and Apr refers to Spring
3. Select one or more State(s)
4. Select the Species
5. Select the Query level
   • For the Species query level, select Count or Weight for Catch and, if desired, a specific To/From Date range
   • For the Individual query level, if desired, select To/From Date, To/From Length, Sex, and Maturity/Reproductive Stage
   • Click Display Points and your map is displayed along with the corresponding chart data

Grid Analysis

Under the grid analysis menu the user can specify an analysis grid based on equal size cells in which point data will be aggregated. The size of the cells are in decimal degrees.  This value must be less than or equal to 0.5.  We recommend 0.1 for NEAMAP and 0.05 for ChesMMAP.  Optionally, enter a Confidentiality Factor to specify a minimum number of points in a cell for that cell’s value to be computed and displayed.  Currently, only the Catch Grid and the Equal Interval Renderer are available. 

Click Preview Grid to display the grid. 

Click Render Grid to display the analysis.  Please note that the legend in the Grid analysis is not consistent with the legend in the Query Data Points analysis. 

User Feedback

Please offer your feedback in the form of questions, comments, and suggestions to Debra Gauthier at parthree@vims.edu or call 804-684-7891.

Updates 

We will update this online version of our data periodically (2-4 times per year) and without notice.  Currently, map-printing functionality is limited to screenshots pasted into a new document such as PowerPoint or Photoshop.  Depending on user feedback, we will work to develop an integrated printing functionality in the future.  Other updates currently under development are:

• Equal Interval legend display
• Preservation of choices in lower-level query boxes when higher-level choices are changed
• Species list with the most popular choices located at the top for convenience

Citation 

We ask that all uses of these maps be given proper credit and citation. For scientific publications please cite as follows:

VIMS Multispecies Research Group. Year, Month, Day. Fishery Analyst Online Catch Data Maps.  http://www.vims.edu/fisheries/mrg/gis
 

Disclaimer 

When you have finished reading this page, to proceed to the data base, please click the link below. This will take you to an email page where we ask that you send us just a bit of information about yourself and your intended use of these data. This will allow us to keep track of the uses and users of our data.

Data included in this data base have undergone routine and extensive QA/QC and care has been taken to limit the number of errors present. However, it is likely that some number of identification and/or coding errors do exist. Users should use care in interpreting these data. VIMS and the Multispecies Research Group take no responsibility for the users’ use or misuse of these data.