North Cumbria Mussel Bed Surveys for Fishery Management, 1998-2009

Twelve consecutive annual surveys of intertidal mussel beds along the Cumbrian coast, commissioned by the Cumbria Sea Fisheries Committee. The data was used to estimate bed size and mussel biomass to inform management decisions for the commercial fishery in the Inner Solway. The dataset likely contains yearly measurements of these unstable natural resources.

Use Cases

• Modeling interannual variability in mussel bed biomass based on the description of significant year-to-year changes.
• Assessing the sustainability of a commercial fishery based on estimated mussel availability mentioned in the description.
• Analyzing long-term trends in coastal shellfish populations based on the 12-year survey time frame.
• Informing spatial management decisions for fisheries based on the geographic focus on the North Cumbria coast.

Strengths

• Twelve years of consecutive annual surveys provide a longitudinal view.
• Data was explicitly collected to inform real-world fishery management decisions.
• Focus on a specific, commercially important geographic area (Inner Solway, Cumbrian coast).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; the data covers a historical period (1998-2009).

Provenance

Source

Cumbria Sea Fisheries Committee, via the Government Digital Service and eu_open_data.

Collection Method

Yearly surveys commissioned to estimate mussel bed size and available biomass.

Time Range

1998 to 2009

Freshness

Historical data; collection concluded in 2009.

Geography

North Cumbria coast, UK, specifically the Inner Solway.