Commonwealth Fisheries Catch and Effort Maps at 0.1 Degree Resolution

Five-year and annual summaries from 2003/04 to 2022/23 of commercial fishing catch and effort in Australian Commonwealth waters. The data is aggregated from logbooks submitted to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) and mapped at a 0.1-degree resolution where five or more boats operate. Data from areas with fewer than five boats is withheld as confidential.

Use Cases

• Mapping fishing pressure hotspots based on aggregated catch and effort data.
• Analyzing temporal trends in fishery activity using the multi-year financial period summaries.
• Identifying areas of low fishing activity where data is confidential due to privacy thresholds.

Strengths

• Data spans multiple five-year financial periods from 2003/04 to 2022/23, plus the single year 2022/23.
• Spatial aggregation at a 0.1-degree resolution provides a standardized geographic summary.
• Includes a specific confidentiality rule (withholding data where fewer than 5 boats operate) to protect fisher privacy.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data for areas with low fishing activity (fewer than 5 boats) is not publicly available.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for some analyses.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, sourced from AFMA-managed commercial fisheries logbooks.

Collection Method

Aggregated from logbook data recorded and submitted by commercial fishers.

Time Range

2003/04 to 2022/23 (in multi-year financial periods and a single year).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 20:22:08.604897; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Commonwealth marine and estuarine waters managed by AFMA in Australia.