Data-driven fishing optimisation for improved fuel efficiency and reduction of by-catch

There is an increasing pressure to reduce CO₂ emissions and reduce by-catch within fisheries. This can be partially realised through improved operations and planning. Publicly available historical fisheries data from the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries is combined with oceanographic data and other datasets by use of kernel density estimation to provide spatio-temporal likelihood estimates of catch composition and abundance. By exploiting this result, a further stage of analysis can then determine optimal –in relation to CPUE, catch, etc-- planning strategies for either single or multiple vessel fishing as part of a decision support system (DSS).