AUTOFISH

Project objective and activities:

The project is aiming to introduce innovative methodologies to enhance the joint management of shared fisheries resources as the key element of the ecosystem of the Gulf of Riga.

The results will improve the protection of the marine resources, sustain biodiversity, and sustainability of the economic and social welfare of the fisheries communities around the Gulf of Riga on the background of optimization of costs. 

The goal is to be achieved by the introduction and development of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV), as a new survey platform in the Gulf of Riga ecosystem surveys. This technological upgrade allows for overcoming several methodological shortcomings in the present fisheries research. This also allows the substantial reduction of the use of conventional research vessels and thus significantly cuts down on survey costs. Reduction of the costs of sea surveys would allow the increase of the extent (both in terms of time and space), of the surveys of the fish communities and in this way to an essential increase in the amount of collected scientific information, serving as a basis for the management decisions.

The expected joint implementation of the proposed novel technology by both countries is planned to be fully transparent which would allow the transfer of the obtained knowledge in the scientific and fisheries communities of both Estonia and Latvia. In a wider sense, the project outcome will feed into the general knowledge of ecosystem management across the whole Baltic Sea and beyond.

https://mereinstituut.ut.ee/en/projects