North Pacific (NORPAC) Groundfish and Halibut Observer Data Dictionary December 2007 - Present

NORPAC is the generic user who owns the layers of information compiled by observers over more than twenty years. The observer program is administered by the Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division (FMA) which is responsible for monitoring groundfish fishing activities in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off Alaska and conducts research associated with sampling commercial fishery catches, estimation of catch and bycatch mortality, and analysis of fishery-dependent data. The Division is responsible for training, briefing, debriefing and oversight of observers who collect catch data onboard fishing vessels and at onshore processing plants and for quality control/quality assurance of the data provided by these observers. Division staff process data and make it available to the Sustainable Fisheries Division of the Alaska Regional Office for quota monitoring and to scientists in other AFSC divisions for stock assessment, ecosystem investigations, and an array of research investigations.

The schema NORPAC contains the collected observer data from the inception of the program, to the current date. The principal uses of these data include inseason management of fisheries in the North Pacific EEZ, and the assessment of fish stocks for conservation management.

Data sets in the NORPAC projects are:

North Pacific Groundfish Observer dataset

Observer Logistics System dataset