Fishing intensity of monk and sole vessels from vessel monitoring systems.
METHODS:
· VMS point location data for all vessels in each of the nine fisheries were collated for the
period 2014 – 2017. The data were cleaned, including removal of clear errors (e.g. points
on land) and clipped to the study area.
· Points were converted into a raster density layer, using a kernel density approach. This
used a 0.005° cell size and a 0.075° search distance using planar units.
· Density layers were then iteratively explored using a quantile based approach to identify
the cut-off for very low density use areas and areas used for transit only, which for all
industries identified the bottom 10% - 15% of used areas as being low use or transit only.
The calibration was done on an expert basis. It identified the mean density of transit only
zones, and then rounded this value up to the next 5 percentile mark. For the next steps
only values above this threshold w…

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