PhD projects within the research area Fisheries Management.
Søren Espersen Schrøder
Title of PhD project
Decision tools and management in the fish sector
Supervisors
J. Rasmus Nielsen, Erling Larsen and Anders Nielsen
Background of project
This PhD project is part of the Horizon 2020 WaSeaBi project, which aims is to bring the state-of-the-art in solving the barriers to sound exploitation of the aquatic resources with focus on the optimal utilization of seafood side-stream through development of storage solutions, sorting technologies and decision tools to secure an efficient, sustainable supply system for by-catches and side-stream from aquaculture, fisheries and the aquatic processing industries.
About the project
The focus of the PhD project is to illustrate how the companies in the WaSeaBi project can optimize their decision-making processes to improve the sustainability and economic utilization of the aquatic side-streams by using decision making tools. This will mainly be explored through the development and application of a new decision support tool to the already existing Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology, that accounts for different decision-making biases and the decision makers’ dominant logic, which are rarely studied or accounted for in this methodology. By using the psychological technique of cognitive mapping to map out a decision makers decision paths on sustainable development it will be identified which biases and components of dominant logic are causing barriers to the sound exploitation of the aquatic resources and side-streams
Perspective
The insights gained from this PhD project will be used to formulate the support tool’s methodology and create a new AHP support tool that to greater degree can account for biases and dominant logic components in its calculations, in order to support decision makers in making unbiased decisions about sustainable optimization of aquatic resources and side-streams.
Berthe Vastenhoud
Title of the PhD project
Fish stock assessment and fisheries dynamic modelling—Investigating the sustainability of potential mesopelagic resource exploitation
Supervisors
J. Rasmus Nielsen, Alexandros Kokkalis and Francois Bastardie
Background of project
The mesopelagic layer of the ocean is located in the pelagic water masses between 200m and 1000m depth. This layer is inhabited by a diverse community, from which Lanternfishes or Myctophids are important constituents. Recent hydro-acoustic survey estimates of these fish species indicated a biomass of 10 billion metric tonnes: an order of magnitude larger than previous estimates. There is increased interest from commercial fisheries to exploit these species for the use for fishmeal, fish oil and nutraceuticals, but the question is whether such potential exploitation is sustainable or not.
About the project
This project evaluates the sustainability of potential exploitation of selected stocks of two key mesopelagic fish species, Maurolicus muelleri and Benthosema glaciale, in the North-East Atlantic, both in terms of ecological and economic sustainability. Length-based statistical methods for data-limited stock assessments are used to estimate demographic parameters related to growth, mortality, stock size and production of the stocks according to Maximum Sustainable Yield. The economic sustainability of a mesopelagic fishery and different management strategies will be evaluated with among other the DISPLACE individual vessel based bio-economic model for large scale pelagic fisheries. This project is part of the H2020 MEESO project, which aims at filling knowledge gaps related to mesopelagic species, to assess their role in the ecosystem and the sustainability of potential mesopelagic exploitation.
Perspective
Alongside with the global human population growth, the demand for food, including marine products, continues to increase. The sustainable exploitation of new marine resources such as mesopelagic species could complement and potentially partially relieve the fishing pressure on existing marine resources while meeting the increasing demands of aquaculture and human nutrition. It is important already in an early stage to make assessments of the long-term ecological and economic sustainability of potential exploitation, and to develop suitable management measures before large scale fishery starts.
Previous PhD students (since 2020)
Tobias Mildenberger
Towards sustainable fisheries: Improving the robustness and effectiveness of management procedures for data-limited fish stocks
Go to DTU Orbit to download thesis
Marie-Christine Rufener
Integrating commercial fisheries and scientific survey data: Advances, new tools and applications to model the fish and fishery dynamics
Go to DTU Orbit to download thesis
Sieme Bossier
Evaluating Major Baltic Fish Stocks under Climate, Eutrophication and Fishing Pressure using a Holistic end-to-end Ecosystem Model
Go to DTU Orbit to download thesis
Kristian Plet-Hansen
Fisheries data from electronic monitoring and traceability systems in the context of the EU landing obligation
Go to DTU Orbit to download thesis