This project measures social and cultural impacts of fishery management on the fishing industry and fishing communities. One key focus of this project is the catch share system for the Pacific Groundfish Trawl Fishery. Catch share management results in a variety of social impacts on West Coast fishing communities. This project documents and evaluates these social impacts in order to account for their effects during fishery management decision-making and meet regulatory requirements. A primary tool used for this has been the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Social Study. A second focus of this project is to collect oral histories from fishery participants (Voices of the West Coast) and a project to categorized and describe West Coast fishing communities by the gear and species used in commercial fisheries. A third focus of this project is to categorize and describe West Coast fishing communities by the fisheries they engage in and the gears used in those fisheries. A fourth initiative to begin in FY20 will collect information on fishing crew – a segment of the fishing industry for which very little information is currently available. Primary Quantitive/Qualitative Dataset.

Data Contains info on Fishing Communities

To enable fisheries managers to comply with National Standard 8 (NS8), NMFS social scientists around the nation are preparing fishing community profiles that present the features and characteristics of such communities. PIFSC has published or is developing four such profiles: one each for Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.

The implementation of Amendment 16 to the fishery's Federal Management Plan in May 2010 implemented catch share management in the form of sectors. In addition, since 2012, there have been severe reductions in catch limits for key species, such as Atlantic cod. Fishery economic performance reports for the Northeast Multispecies Fishery produced by NMFS' Office of Science and Technology (the National Catch Share Report) and the NEFSC Social Science Branch (Final Reports on the Performance of the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery produced annually since 2010) evaluate the performance of commercial fishing vessels with a limited access groundfish permit that have remained active. However, little is known about the ways in which fishermen, particularly those who have traditionally actively targeted groundfish, are making decisions in response to changes in the biological and management conditions in the fishery. In addition, little is known about the economic and social impacts on fishermen who are no longer actively fishing or may be operating at a loss. The project portfolio contains text files of approximately 60 ethnographic interviews with current and former participants in New England's Northeast Multispecies Fishery (the groundfish fishery) conducted in 2013 and 2014 in several New England ports. Interviewees include commercial fishermen, managers of Northeast Multispecies Sectors, and other leaders in the commercial fishing community. Some interviews have been recorded and transcribed. In some cases, audio recording was not possible due to the noise level at the interview site; for these interviews, extensive notes were taken by the interviewer(s). Coding of these interviews in NVivo, a software designed to analyze qualitative information is ongoing. The project portfolio also contains an Excel spreadsheet that contains a table with selected characteristics for each interviewee (e.g. fisherman's age, marital status, number of dependents, years of fishing experience, etc.) (see InPort ID #27637).

This dataset contains demographic, fishing practices, crew information about Crucian fishermen as well as their perceptions about the performance of local MPAs and seasonal closures.

This research provides a quantitative means of determining which communities in West Coast coastal counties are most connected to fishing, both commercial and recreational fishing, and allows for a quantitative approach to concepts like community “engagement” and “dependence” on fishing. The project employs a methodology that incorporates a diverse range of secondary data and proxy measures of human community attributes with the aim of considering multiple social and ecological community dimensions simultaneously. We analyze demographic, economic, geographic, meteorological, quality of life and fisheries-specific data for all coastal communities at the U.S. census-designated place (CDP) level in Washington, Oregon and California. A factor analysis approach to these data allows us to examine relative similarities among variables for a set of proposed indices of community vulnerability and connections to fishing, and allows us to compare communities relative to one another for each measure. Social vulnerability and fishing dependence composite scores are available for multiple years, and this is a multi-year project developed, carried out and updated each year in coordination with all NMFS fishery management regions. These community-level analyses are also conducted in concert with the analysis of primary fisheries participation data, collected via a coast-wide survey of West Coast fishery participants. We will implement the coast-wide survey at regular intervals, including in 2019, providing us with longitudinal data and potential time series analyses to be paired with our broader community indicators. These data represent generalized social vulnerability composite scores for each of 880 West Coast communities.

Data Contains info on Fishing Communities

The purpose of the Fisheries One-Stop-Shop (FOSS) is to make fisheries dependent information readily available to fisheries managers, scientists and the American public at a national as well as regional level. Collection and management of fisheries dependent data are distributed throughout NOAA Fisheries, State Fisheries, management agencies and regional Fisheries Information Networks (FINs). The distributed nature of NOAA Fisheries information systems, differences in collection authorities and confidentiality requirements increases the importance of this flexible technical architecture that can meet the changing needs for information at national, regional and local levels of resolution. At the same time, the technical architecture is scalable to meet enterprise wide requirements for management of other types of fisheries data and fisheries independent data. Currently available via FOSS are the summarized, non-confidential, annual Commercial Landings by state as provided through the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP), the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Information Network (GulfFIN). Recreational Landings estimates are available and provided via NMFS Headquarters. In FY2011, FOSS will be expanded to include all commercial landings nationally.

The NOAA Fisheries Community Social Vulnerability Indicators (CSVIs) data series from 2009 to 2020 is comprised of a suite of indicators that describe and evaluate a coastal community's ability to respond to changing social, economic and environmental conditions. The CSVIs are a valuable educational tool for policy makers, fishery management practitioners, stakeholders and the public. The 14 indices measure facets of commercial and recreational fishing dependence, social and gentrification pressure vulnerability and climate change vulnerability. The indices enable the comparison of these conditions for over 4,800 coastal communities in 23 states. The indicators illustrate geographic and temporal variation in these conditions. The social indicators were developed with multiple so's American Community Survey 5-year estimates and NOAA Fisheries. The social and gentrification pressure vulnerability indices were calculated with U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) five year rolling average estimate data from 2005-2009 to 2016-2020. The commercial fisheries indicators were developed using NOAA Fisheries landings data from 2009 to 2020. The recreational fisheries indicators were developed from 2009 to 2020 with NOAA fisheries and/or state (Texas, Louisiana, California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawai'i) data unique to each region. The social and gentrification pressure vulnerability indices data series were paired with commercial and recreational fisheries indicators from the final year in each data series. For example, the 2005 to 2009 social indicator data series are paired with 2009 fisheries indicators. The sea level rise risk indicator was initially developed in 2015 and updated in 2020 for all coastal states except Alaska due to the unavailability of data. The updated sea level rise risk indicator was paired with 2016-2020 social indicator data series and 2020 fisheries data. The storm surge risk indicator was developed in 2015 for Gulf Coast and Eastern U.S. communities due to hurricane risk. Storm surge risk indicator was introduced in 2015 and paired with 2011 to 2015 social indicator data series and 2015 fisheries data. Both sea level rise risk and storm surge risk indicators will be repeated annually until updated. The data are collected by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Alaska Fisheries Science Center and Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and compiled and processed by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. The indices are computed individually with 3 to 5 variables; thus each index represents a different concept. The data are placed in a principal components factor analysis to achieve a single factor solution. This produces a score that represents a community's standard deviation from the mean (x=0). The standard deviation scores are categorized from low to high: category 1-low = below 0 SD; category 2-medium = above 0 to .499 SD; category 3-medium high = .500 to .999 SD; category 4-high = at or above 1.00 SD. Category 0 = N/A indicates the data is not available.