Esri Ireland teams up with Inland Fisheries Ireland to monitor fish stocks

Digital mapping specialist Esri Ireland has teamed up with Inland Fisheries Ireland to turn the country’s 250,000 recreational anglers into observers and stewards of the country’s fish stocks, helping the agency meet its European Union data requirements.

The partnership, which sees Esri Ireland’s software used by the agency to support the Irish Marine Recreational Angling Survey, is designed to help conserve fish stocks and protect marine ecosystems. The survey aims to estimate the catches of sea anglers around Ireland.

Esri’s Survey123 app allows anglers to upload real-time information about the fish they catch and release. That data is sent to a shared repository, ArcGIS Hub, where Inland Fisheries can monitor it to identify patterns in the species distribution, volumes and weight of fish caught, and estimated catch rates.

“ArcGIS will enable us to recruit anglers as citizen scientists and crowdsource the large volume of data that we require for EU and national reporting,” said William Roche, senior research officer at Inland Fisheries Ireland. “With more anglers collecting data we will be able to build up a better picture of the state of fish stocks off Ireland’s coast, particularly for anglers. The personalised dashboards will help to make the recording of data a habitual activity for anglers.”

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The agency had previously used Esri’s ArcGIS system for a catch, tag and release programme for the critically endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna. While the EU is focused on cod, pollock, sharks, rays, sea bass and tuna, the system can capture data on other species.

“Our GIS solution has provided Inland Fisheries Ireland with a feasible and affordable way to capture additional data to complement the other data collected for the EU,” said Schalk Van Lill, Esri Ireland’s customer success manager. “Citizen science like this provides broad spatial coverage all around the coastline of Ireland, enabling Inland Fisheries Ireland to efficiently comply with requirements. The solution can be easily scaled up to accept data uploads from more and more participants, allowing Inland Fisheries Ireland to expand the scheme over time.”