A software tool for monitoring legal minimum length of landings: Case study of a fishery in southern Spain

R. Cabrera, C. Valero-Franco, F. Piniella, Cesar adolfo Diaz, M.C. Gómez-Cama, M.C. Soriguer and J.A. Hernando

Marine Policy, 2012, vol. 36, issue 4, 895-902

Abstract: The regulation of minimum legal size (MLS) of catches is a tool widely applied in the management of fisheries resources, although the MLS does not always coincide with the length at first maturity (LFM). The optimization of this management tool requires a series of quality control in fish markets and transportation. A software application has been developed to make the control of the landings of several target species easier and faster. In order to test and make this tool operational, six species of commercial interest were selected: four species of fish and two species of bivalves. It is proposed to estimate the proportion of illegal specimens in the studied lot from the proportion of illegal individuals found in the samples taken from this lot. The input data for the application are the minimum legal size (MLS) of the species and the total length (TL) of each specimen sampled. The output data is a statistical summary of the percentage of specimens of size less than the legal minimum (TL≤MLS) within different confidence intervals (90%, 95% and 99%). The software developed will serve as a fast, efficient and easy to manage tool that allows inspectors to determine the degree of compliance on MLS control and to make a decision supported by statistical proof on fishing goods.

Keywords: Minimum legal size; Fisheries management; Sample size; Control of landings; Small-scale fisheries; Southern Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X11001989
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:36:y:2012:i:4:p:895-902

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2011.12.002

Access Statistics for this article

Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown

More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().