Hi Natheer, what you can do depends upon the density, quality and uniformity of the data-set. A good example of spatial modeling using fishing data is the KRILLBASE data from the Southern ocean: http://www.iced.ac.uk/science/krillbase.htm

this has been used for a number of publications including at least one Nature paper, and uses fishing data, in conjunction with a number of environmental variables to analyse patterns, all done ion a GIS framework.

Thank you Prof. Peter for your comment and the nice example you referred to. I am going to prepare abundance maps, suitability maps and fish-habitat maps. What do you think the other things we can prepare using these data.

Natheer did you work with 1 km or 250 m resolution MODIS imagery? Also one way to get out of the typical visible problem (cloud coverage etc) is to work with averages (8-day, 15-day, monthly, seasonal, etc). Have you tried to used 250 m MODIS for OC and work with averages? Also can use other parameters that are also interesting, PIC for example :-) (although this also has the same problem as chla because it is within the visible range)

"What kind of analyses can be done with GPS data of fishing spots (combined with catch species composition and satellite images of the coastal area)?"

depends on the purpose...

Thank you Dr Martins and Torok.

Dr Martin, the resolution of MODIS imagery was 1 km. I have tried monthly composites for chlorophyll but still I get bad images, this may be attributed to sun glint, and not to cloud cover.

Hi Natheer, initially you may want to do some CPUE estimates where your effort can be per gear or per trip or per boat. Because you have point data over time, it would look great when plotted in a GIS where for instance you could show how the catch changes for the period studied. Habitat mapping would require ground truthing surveys to determine type and extent.

Have you considered Hyperspectral imaging? For example; Estimation of chlorophyll-a concentration in productive turbid waters using a Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean—the Azov Sea case study

Abstract (partial): We present here the results of chlorophyll-a (chl-a) concentration estimation using the red and near infrared (NIR) spectral bands of a Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) in productive turbid waters of the Azov Sea, Russia.

http://calmit.unl.edu/people/agitelson2/pdf/2011/2011-erl-hico.pdf

Hi,

I think depend on your aim, but with spatial analyse in Ace GIs you can find for example a critical point of spawning in fish and so try to prevent some treathen parameter to species. I work with Arc GIs, and I knew you do many analyse with yoour data because you collect the valuable data during the time

good luck

Hi friend, with the information you have supply, its assumed that you gather much data without initial Aim and Objective. In RS and GIS spatial data analysis for project purposes, the five major guiding principles are:

1. The purpose of the project,

2. the level of detailing required in the work,

3. the time frame for the work,

4. the area coverage of the work, and

5. the technical-know-how of the team researcher.

After your groundtruthing with the GPS readings to generate attribute data together with the satellite images acquired (high or low resolution) which depends on the above listed factors: a lot of maps can be generated to answer issues on:

Fish niche, Identification and preservation of endangered species, colony mapping, migratory surveillance, species ecological study, etc. summarily, you need to give answer to the five points given above as a trafficator.

Thank you for the people who contributed to this question.

Actually from this question I want to explore the ideas of scientists who has much more experience than young researchers. My purpose from this study is to make habitat maps using satellite images (off course with the ground truth data I have already collected).

And using the GPS and catch data I am going to map the spatial distribution of fishing effort, and CPUE and finally I am going to prepare species-habitat interrelation maps.

Dr Olsen, my problem is not turbidity but strong sun glint which make it difficult to find proper images.

Mr Dukiya, this is not a project. This is a work for the PhD thesis. I have in mind a rough idea about the various steps of this research and I have already run through many steps but still I need advices from the pioneer fisheries scientists who has experience in remote sensing and GIS to help me improve the output of this study.

Recent studies have shown that such data can be used to monitor fish stocks and shoaling species.

Hello Natheer, the examples I provided demonstrated hyperspectral imaging (HSI) as it applies to coastal studies. However, there are glint mitigation techniques available for HSI that might be of interest to you. Here are two that I was reading recently:

http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers/RSC/documents/12Sep_Miller_Chad.pdf

http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers/RSC/documents/12Sep_Burt.pdf

Also, the data obtained from HSI can be useful in so many ways.

By the way, thank you for the promotion (albeit undeserved since I am not a Dr.).

There are certainly a number of types of potential analyses that can be undertaken, many of which can relate your habitat data to the catch of your ships (mediated by effort, of course).

Here are a couple examples of the wide variety of analyses that could be attempted (but you must take care to be appropriate to the scale of your data)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.792/abstract

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2419.2002.00196.x/full

If either link does not work due to access restrictions, their DOI is within each http.

Thank you Cristiano, Olsen and Nathan for your valuable contributions to this question. The methods and advices you provide will help me much in my analysis.

I am still expecting more contributions from other scientists.

Your data can also give you information on the fishing pressure (catch per unit effort) at the fishing spots.

The catch species composition and the various sizes of the fishes will give information on recruitment dynamics of the fish stocks traversing the axis of the fishing spots.

It is also possible from your satellite imagery to determine the bathymetry of the habitat where the fishing spots are located and determine the possible depth which the various local species are adapted to or naturally exist in.

You can demarcate those areas around each of the islands where there is no coral growth,this is for the purpose of landing fishing boat in case of emergency.Those areas with corals could be fragile & need to be avoided.You can also find out the island/s exposure area at each of the low tide ( & these are of varied depths). Some islands may be completely submerged at different levels of high tide,& some of them may be exposed even during full high tide for that place. The second category of islands may be used in case of emergency for boats & crew.

In case chlorophyll data are not useful,then occurrence of indicator species may be looked for. For this ground truth needs to be carried out. You may get CCT's of the area & get the pixel value of each of the pixels of each of the frames in order to ascertain the presence of the phytoplankton/ ers.