Electronic Technologies Implementation Plans

NOAA Fisheries has developed six regional Electronic Technologies Implementation Plans that establish a regional vision for developing, integrating, and implementing electronic technologies for fisheries-dependent data collection in U.S. fisheries.

Alaska

New England/Mid-Atlantic

Pacific Islands

Southeast

West Coast

National

NOAA Fisheries works with fishermen, regional fishery management councils, technology service providers, and a variety of other partners to improve the timeliness, quality, cost effectiveness, and accessibility of fishery-dependent data by integrating technology into data collection and monitoring programs for conserving and managing our nation's fisheries. Although many fisheries have been developing technologies for fisheries for a decade or more, a lot of this work gained momentum in 2013, when NOAA Fisheries published a Policy Directive on Electronic Technologies and Fishery-Dependent Data Collection (ET Policy Directive).

This ET Policy Directive established a number of guiding principles and recommendations, but more importantly, it established a requirement that all five NOAA Fisheries Regions – New England/ Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, West Coast, Alaska, and the Pacific Islands – as well as the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species program – publish Electronic Technologies Implementation Plans (ET Plans) covering five years. The original ET Plans were published in early 2015, and updated several times through 2017. In 2019, NOAA Fisheries published an updated ET Policy Directive which called for new content for the ET Plans and a more standardized way of collecting and tracking ET program development and implementation. In August 2021, NOAA Fisheries published the new ET Plans, which cover 2021 - 2025, and they’ll be updated and republished each spring.