37^th plenary meeting report of the scientific, technical and economic committee for fisheries (PLEN-11-02)

The Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries hold its 37th plenary on 11-15 July 2011 in Copenhagen (Denmark). The terms of reference included both issues assessments of STECF Expert Working Group reports and additional requests submitted to the STECF by the Commission. Topics dealt with ranged from fisheries economics to management plan evaluation issues

Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries. Evaluation of fishing effort regimes - Deep sea and Western waters (STECF-11-12)

EWG-11-11 meeting was held on 26 – 30 September 2011 in Cadiz (Spain). This Section of the report covers the Deep Sea and Western Waters and provides fleet specific trends in catch (including discards), nominal effort and catch (landings) per unit of effort in order to advise on fleet specific impacts on stocks under multiannual management plans. STECF reviewed the report during its November 2011 plenary meeting

Correction of artifacts on differential SAR interferometry for the study of subsidence phenomena in urban and suburban areas

This paper deals with the analysis and correction of artifacts on differential synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry applied for monitoring urban and suburban areas. Particularly, those artifacts arising from the use in interferometric processing of low accuracy acquisition geometry data are considered. To remove these artifacts, we propose a new algorithm able to estimate the acquisition geometry parameters relevant to the interferometric processing with high accuracy directly from the SAR data. In order to validate the proposed algorithm, the results obtained by applying the new technique to the study of the subsidence phenomena in Bologna (Italy) and the surrounding area are presented and compared to the results obtained by using in the interferometric processing the precise orbit data provided by the Delft Institute for Earth Oriented Space Research (DEOS)

Analysis and correction of artifacts on differential SAR interferometry for the study of subsidence phenomena

This paper deals with the analysis and correction of artifacts on differential synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. Particularly, we concentrate on those artifacts arising from the use in interferometric processing of low accuracy acquisition geometry data. To remove these artifacts, we propose a new algorithm able to estimate the acquisition geometry parameters with high accuracy directly from the SAR data. The application of the proposed technique to the study of the subsidence phenomena in Bologna (Italy) and the surrounding area is also presented to validate the new algorithm

Consumer perspectives on coastal fisheries and product labelling in France and Italy

The term ‘coastal fisheries’ designates a form of fishing which is under heavy pressure due to competition by large-scale high sea fishing. Setting up markets for seafood from coastal fisheries might offer possibilities of product differentiation when appreciated by consumers. The aim of this research is to analyse the potential of marketing seafood from coastal fisheries by investigating consumers’ perception of coastal fisheries and their attitudes towards a label for coastal fishery products in France and Italy. This research combined qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative methods (online survey) in two different steps. ‘Coastal fisheries’ were mainly perceived positively, as they provide fresh products, and are healthy and important for coastal areas. Although opinions on labelling in general, and on coastal fisheries specifically, varied widely, about 70% of the respondents were in favour of a coastal fisheries label. The willingness to use a coastal fisheries label increased significantly when domestic origin, high-quality products, eco-friendliness, support of local/coastal communities and artisanal fishing practices were part of this kind of label. It is concluded that using a label for communicating the origin coastal fisheries appears to be promising for the two study countries: France and Italy. A prerequisite for the success of this kind of approach is that the seafood products must fully comply with consumer expectations, as they are of domestic origin, be of very high product quality and fished in an artisanal or eco-friendly manner

Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) in fisheries: implementation in EU fishing regions

An Impact Assessment (IA) is a process aimed at structuring and supporting the development of policies. Besides the fact that IA assumes different features when applied to different sectors, really it should help policy makers in evaluating the contribution to the fisheries sustainability of new regulations. The recent improvements and development around the IA methodologies go more and more toward the concept of a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA). The evolution of IA in the fishery sector has followed the general and increasing need in having a more and more integrated type of analysis, focusing on the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic and social). This paper synthesizes the methodology developed under the EU FP7 SOCIOEC project , whose main objective was the application of the most recent EU guidelines on IA to the current (and future) EU fishery management. The result is an integrated approach taking into account the main pillars of sustainability and a strong stakeholders’ involvement. A clear step-by-step procedure based on both qualitative and quantitative type of analyses has been defined, the last step being the “rating” phase, an essential step in a SIA, that provides the possibility to assess the results of different policy options (allowing policy makers to select the most appropriate one) in terms of acceptability, effectiveness, coherence and efficiency. The overall methodology has been tested on different EU regions, fisheries and management measures.JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource