Victorian Commercial Fisheries Catch and Effort Summaries, 2003-2023

Victorian logbook data summarizes catch and effort distribution for commercial fisheries in state marine and estuarine waters. The data, submitted by commercial fishers to the Victorian Fisheries Authority, is aggregated to reporting blocks where five or more boats operate, with data from areas with fewer boats shown as confidential. Summaries are mapped using multi-year financial periods from 2003/04 to 2022/23.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial distribution of fishing effort based on aggregated reporting block data.
• Track changes in total catch over time based on multi-year financial period summaries.
• Identify areas of high commercial fishing activity where data is not confidential.
• Support fisheries management policy with aggregated catch and effort statistics.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range, with summaries for periods from 2003/04 to 2022/23.
• Aggregation to reporting blocks with five or more boats provides a measure of data privacy protection.

Limitations

• Data for areas with fewer than five boats is withheld as confidential, creating spatial gaps.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Victorian Fisheries Authority via the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Summaries were aggregated from commercial fishing logbooks submitted by fishers.

Time Range

2003/04 to 2022/23, mapped in multi-year financial periods.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-18 19:11:06.143150; freshness should be verified.

Geography

State marine and estuarine waters of Victoria, Australia.