Future use of GIS in marine fisheries management
Geographic information system in marine fisheries characteristically focus on mapping
the fishing ground, characteristic of marine environment (Da Silva. P.Patricia 2005) fish
distribution (Zheng. X. 2002), and fishing effort (Nilsson. Per 2007). Even though this
information is very important input to fisheries management in order to manage the
marine resources, they are all only focused on the sea (Da Silva. P.Patricia 2005). New
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approach of fishing management should consider the fishing community on land and their
connection to marine resources (Da Silva. P.Patricia 2005) when it comes to the decision
making process. This is very important, because not only we need to protect our marine
resources; we need also to have broader understanding to how a new regulation will
affect fishing community and stakeholder in the future.
Recognizing the fact that GIS can be used as quantitative and qualitative measures, the
blend of ecological data, geological data, fisheries statistical data, and socio-economic
data, as long as they are stored and organized systematically and can be related to a
geographic place (Da Silva. P.Patricia 2005); can be a very powerful tool to fisheries
manager to do a comprehensive assessment on fisheries. The idea that is proposed to
connect these data is then called as “socio-ecological marine connection mapping” (Da
Silva. P.Patricia 2005).