Fisheries and Survey Technology

Fishery will always have an impact on the marine environment, but we can try to minimise the impact as much as possible. At the same time, fisheries must not only be ecologically sustainable, but also economically sustainable. Technical innovations play a prominent role in this.

The aim of the Fisheries and Survey Technology working group is therefore to develop and test technical innovations for various fisheries that enable sustainable fishing. This applies to beam trawling in the North Sea (for sole and crab) as well as to trawling and passive fishing with gillnets. A particular challenge is the reorientation of European fisheries policy with the introduction of a ban on discards in European waters (Field of Activity: Fisheries Management). More than ever, this requires more selective gears in which only the species and sizes desired and marketable by the fisherman are caught, or alternative fishing methods that help reducing the impact on the seabed or avoid bycatch of seabirds or sea mammals.

At the same time, fuel consumption and sorting effort on board are to be reduced to make fishing more economically sustainable as well. In addition to technical solutions for fishing, the working group supports the sea-based work of the fisheries institutes with the maintenance, development and operation of various technical devices for collecting marine data. This includes gear sensor systems, measuring systems, various remote-controlled underwater vehicles, as well as underwater observation technology.