British Fisheries Catch and Effort Statistics, 1913-1981 at ICES Rectangle Scale

1913 to 1981 (excluding World War periods) of annual and monthly fisheries statistics for British commercial fleets. The data, sourced from unpublished historical charts held by Cefas, provides landings, catch rates per species, and fishing effort at a fine spatial scale. Values are indicated for each 1° longitude by 30' latitude (ICES) rectangle and aggregated for entire ICES fishing areas.

Use Cases

• Model historical fish stock abundance based on catch rates per species mentioned in the description
• Analyze spatial shifts in fishing effort over decades based on the ICES rectangle-level statistics
• Reconstruct time series of commercial landings for specific species based on the annual and monthly data
• Study fleet dynamics and component changes based on the fishing effort data for various fleet segments

Strengths

• Covers a 68-year time span from 1913 to 1981, providing a long-term historical perspective
• Provides data at a fine spatial resolution of 1° longitude by 30' latitude (ICES rectangles)
• Includes multiple metrics: landings, catch rates per species, and fishing effort

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; freshness unverified

Provenance

Source

Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Lowestoft, UK, via the Government Digital Service.

Collection Method

Digitized from unpublished historical 'Statistical Charts'.

Time Range

1913-1981 (excluding both World Wars).

Freshness

Historical data covering up to 1981; last update for the dataset catalog is unknown.

Geography

Spatial coverage likely corresponds to ICES fishing areas relevant to British commercial fisheries.