Trends in the Alaskan bottom-trawl fishery from 1993-2015: a GIS-based spatiotemporal analysis ...

• Main Author: Steves, Carrie Elizabeth author
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Southern California Digital Library (USC.DL) 2017
• Subjects: Geographic Information Science and Technology degree program; Master of Science degree; College of Letters, Arts and Sciences school; Bering Sea; Gulf of Alaska; Alaska; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-389333; https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1O8VIJO3

The Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska yield one of the largest sustainable fishing industries in the world. To ensure continued sustainable practices, the effects of fishing activity on the health of the ecosystem should be actively studied. Bottom-trawl gear is a sustainability concern due to its direct interaction with the benthic layer. Impact from bottom-trawl fisheries is difficult to assess, particularly over the long-term. Using fishery-dependent observer data from National Marine Fisheries (NMFS) provides insight on the location and the intensity of fishing effort, which can identify areas most exposed to fishing pressure. ? In this study, the spatial and temporal extent of Alaskan bottom-trawl fishing effort in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska was explored in a space-time cube in ArcGIS Pro v1.4.1 using NMFS data collected between 1993 and 2015. Various statistical techniques were used to examine spatiotemporal autocorrelation and clustering in this data. Results ...