Bottom trawl fishing footprints on the world's continental shelves.

ABSTRACT: Bottom trawlers land around 19 million tons of fish and invertebrates annually, almost one-quarter of wild marine landings. The extent of bottom trawling footprint (seabed area trawled at least once in a specified region and time period) is often contested but poorly described. We quantify footprints using high-resolution satellite vessel monitoring system (VMS) and logbook data on 24 continental shelves and slopes to 1,000-m depth over at least 2 years. Trawling footprint varied markedly among regions: from <10% of seabed area in Australian and New Zealand waters, the Aleutian Islands, East Bering Sea, South Chile, and Gulf of Alaska to >50% in some European seas. Overall, 14% of the 7.8 million-km² study area was trawled, and 86% was not trawled. Trawling activity was aggregat

SUBMITTER: Amoroso RO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6205437 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature