NWIFCA Mussel Surveys for Fishery Management, 1996-2013

North Western Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NWIFCA) conducted mussel surveys across its district from 1996 to 2013 to inform fishery management. The data includes percentage cover of mussel beds and other habitat types, as well as the relative proportion of different mussel size classes. Samples were often taken to produce length frequency tables, with an adaptive survey strategy focusing on commercially important or problematic beds.

Use Cases

• Modeling mussel population size-class distributions based on recorded proportions.
• Assessing habitat composition changes over time based on percentage cover data.
• Informing adaptive fishery management strategies based on survey focus on commercially important beds.

Strengths

• Covers an 18-year time range from 1996 to 2013.
• Includes multiple biological metrics: habitat percentage cover and mussel size-class proportions.
• Data collection strategy is described, focusing on commercially important or problematic beds.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

North Western Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NWIFCA), aggregated via Government Digital Service.

Collection Method

Field surveys recording percentage cover and mussel size classes, with samples for length frequency analysis.

Time Range

1996 - 2013

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown.

Geography

North Western Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority district (UK).