NOAA Fisheries monitors and manages more than 460 fish stocks across U.S. ocean waters—that’s more than 4 million square miles of ocean! We work to ensure our fisheries are sustainable, which requires striking a healthy balance between positive economic impacts and long-term population health.
To ensure stocks are sustainably harvested, we make management decisions using the latest data. Fisheries managers may make decisions, such as closing or opening seasons, adjusting total catch limits, introducing quotas, or other measures. These decisions affect fishing communities, coastal economies, and the seafood available on our tables.
Accurate, reliable, and up-to-date data is essential for effective management decisions. Ocean data are a U.S. strategic asset. We are currently modernizing how we collect, manage, and use data with new technologies.
This modernization effort focuses on two main areas:
- Improving how we gather information in the ocean
- Enhancing how we analyze, store, and share that information
By strengthening both, we are building a faster, more efficient system that helps scientists and managers more effectively manage marine resources.
A more efficient data enterprise will help fisheries managers—like regional fishery management councils, marine fisheries commissions, international organizations, and other management bodies—make better, more informed decisions. Leveraging advanced technologies helps address challenges across regions related to data needs, infrastructure, and management.
Data Collection
Each at-sea observation provides valuable information about the size, quantity, location, and health of stocks. By improving our data collection to expand and modernize stock assessments, we gain a better understanding of how marine resources are faring.
A key component of this strategy is increasing the number and types of observations we can make. Upgrading our data acquisition technology will help us collect data through at-sea observations on both research vessels and uncrewed platforms. Our aim is to diversify both our at-sea survey platforms and our tools.
Some of these advanced technologies include:
- Uncrewed systems—ocean robots that collect data without ships
- Passive acoustics—listening underwater for animals and ocean activity
- Active acoustics—sonar to estimate fish and map habitats
- Optics—cameras that visually observe species and environments
- Remote sensing—satellites tracking animals and ocean conditions from space
- ‘Omics—genetic tools detecting species from water samples
These tools will allow us to acquire data in places we were not able to survey before. They will also advance the techniques we use to analyze the new data, particularly in quickly evolving disciplines such as genomics.
By deploying more accessible and dependable data platforms, we can better automate and update tools we have developed for managers with new data. This will help us provide real-time advice and longer-range projections for marine resources.
Expanding the types of platforms we use expands both our range of data collection and the frequency with which we can sample. This type of 'environmental intelligence' will open new windows into the state of the ocean resources we both use and conserve for the benefit of the nation.
Seeing Below the Surface: New Frontiers in Data Collection & Processing
In the Gulf of America, advanced technology is helping us with new ways to collect and analyze red snapper and reef fish data that underpin scientific products such as abundance estimates. We are using advanced video and acoustic cameras, combined with echosounders and artificial intelligence, to create a first-of-its-kind attempt to develop next-generation surveys. They will improve and automate detection of red snapper, even in low visibility conditions. Gaining more information about red snapper abundance is crucial for the sustainable management of the species and on the coastal economies that rely on thriving fisheries.
Dive deeper: Explore a storymap showcasing how we are monitoring reef fish with advanced technology and artificial intelligence, including multibeam echosounders to map seafloor habitats in high resolution, genomics to process and analyze environmental DNA samples, and artificial intelligence and machine learning to interpret video data.
And in Alaska, NOAA scientists are using artificial intelligence forms such as computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning to assist with processing fishery data. This technology is helping them to analyze data more quickly to evaluate the effectiveness of excluders that help salmon escape from fishing nets intended to catch pollock. These deep-learning methods may help advance bycatch reduction methods, thus encouraging smarter fishing and sustainable practices.
Data Analysis and Storage
Collected fisheries data requires secure storage and analysis. Increased collection capacity will result in more available information to support our work. In this second phase of data analysis and storage, we will modernize our data infrastructure and workforce. The improved data management process will reduce the human and financial burden of working with the data.
We are working to standardize our data assets, enhance our responsiveness to requests, and streamline workflows by incorporating cloud-based solutions. This will ensure that our data is ready for tools like artificial intelligence to allow broad access to the information we are collecting and using.
Partners across the country, such as the regional fishery management councils, will also collaborate on this effort with us. Our aim is to ensure the data collected is kept confidential where necessary, but largely accessible for all who could benefit from access.
Logging into Innovation: Examples of Greater Data Efficiencies
One project will focus on modernizing the federal permitting and reporting systems. This will enable users to obtain permits and manage quotas electronically.
Another example of optimizing our processes is modernizing the Atlantic Coast logbook reporting systems for both commercial and for-hire fishermen. This effort will increase our data sharing capabilities, simplify and speed up the reporting process for fishermen, and lower costs.
Data Interpretation and Delivery
Using new, advanced technology, we will be able to interpret data more accurately and deliver it more efficiently. Upgrading our data acquisition, data systems, and data sharing efforts will ensure we are maximizing the value of our technology and infrastructure investments.
When more information about our oceans is accessible to scientists around the country, we are better able to make predictions and recommendations that lead to better-managed fisheries.
These new advancements will also boost our capacity to protect endangered and threatened species, support aquaculture, and provide information to coastal communities that depend on marine resources.
With a transformed data enterprise, we will boost our scientific expertise, ultimately helping to ensure American fisheries are sustainable for future generations to enjoy.
