UK Marine Strategy 2024: Good Environmental Status for Commercial Fish Stocks

An assessment product from the UK Marine Strategy evaluates the Good Environmental Status (GES) for commercially exploited marine quota fish stocks. The assessment integrates fishing pressure and reproductive capacity indicators for stocks, using data from 2016 to 2021 and comparing results to previous cycles (2004-2009, 2010-2015). It is published by the UK Government Digital Service via the Cefas Marine Online Assessment Tool.

Use Cases

• Assessing compliance with the UK Marine Strategy's Good Environmental Status targets based on the described indicator framework.
• Analyzing trends in fishing pressure and stock reproductive capacity over the 2016-2021 period mentioned in the description.
• Comparing stock status across assessment cycles (2004-2009, 2010-2015, 2016-2021) as referenced in the methodology.
• Modeling the relationship between fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass for quota species.

Strengths

• Assessment is based on a defined conditional method (ICES, 2016) integrating two key biological indicators.
• Provides temporal comparison across three multi-year assessment cycles (2004-2009, 2010-2015, 2016-2021).
• Official product from a government organization (Government Digital Service) with a published methodology link.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service (UK), via the Cefas Marine Online Assessment Tool (MOAT).

Collection Method

Stock assessment data integrated following a conditional method (ICES, 2016) for fishing pressure and reproductive capacity indicators.

Time Range

Primary assessment uses data from 2016 to 2021, with comparisons to 2004-2009 and 2010-2015 cycles.

Freshness

Assessment references data up to 2021 and is labeled for the 2024 UK Marine Strategy.

Geography

United Kingdom marine waters (implied by UK Marine Strategy).