Global Fishing Effort by Vessel, Gear, and Region, 1950-2017

Fishing effort data estimates the number of vessels, engine power, gross tonnage, and fishing effort from 1950 to 2017. The dataset, hosted by the Australian Ocean Data Network, covers global fisheries and is aggregated at Exclusive Economic Zone, Large Marine Ecosystem, and Food and Agriculture Organisation levels. Estimates were derived from country-level fleet capacity data using a published scientific method.

Use Cases

• Modeling global marine ecosystem impacts based on fishing effort and gear type.
• Analyzing the long-term evolution of fishing capacity based on vessel and engine power data.
• Informing regional fisheries management policies based on data aggregated at EEZ and LME levels.
• Understanding socio-ecological implications of fishing based on multi-decadal time series.

Strengths

• Covers a 68-year time range from 1950 to 2017.
• Provides global coverage with estimates at multiple spatial aggregation levels (EEZ, LME, FAO).
• Derived using a peer-reviewed methodology documented in Rousseau et al. (2019).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic or reporting bias inherent to the source country-level fleet data.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data_gov_au.

Collection Method

Estimates derived from country-level fishing fleet capacity data following the method in Rousseau et al. (2019).

Time Range

1950-2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-18 19:45:27.136305; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, aggregated at EEZ-, LME-, and FAO-levels.