Harbour Porpoise Bycatch Risk Rasters for Irish Waters, 2015-2022

Spatially explicit raster data predicting seasonal interaction risk between harbour porpoises and gillnet fisheries in Irish waters between 2015 and 2022. The dataset combines predicted porpoise distribution with fishing effort data to identify persistent zones of potential exposure. Tiffany Goh created this framework to inform precautionary management of marine mammal bycatch.

Use Cases

• Identifying priority areas for bycatch monitoring based on predicted interaction risk zones.
• Assessing the overlap between marine mammal habitat and gillnet fishing effort.
• Informing spatial management measures for fisheries based on calculated bycatch thresholds.
• Supporting risk-based assessments for vulnerable species when empirical bycatch data are limited.

Strengths

• Data covers seasonal patterns for summer and winter over an 8-year period (2015-2022).
• Spatial framework is explicitly designed for the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone.
• Analysis incorporates calculated allowable bycatch thresholds based on 2022 abundance estimates.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the Irish study area.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Likely generated by combining predicted harbour porpoise distribution models with gillnet fishing effort data.

Time Range

2015-2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 18:14:37; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Irish Exclusive Economic Zone, with specific mention of the Celtic Sea and west coast continental shelf.