ABSTRACT
Coral reef fisheries represent approximately 20 to 25% of the potential fish harvests available to developing countries. The fishery on a reef can be divided among several very different habitat types, including: sandy lagoons, lagoonal coral patches, seagrass beds, mangrove roots, backreef zones, forereef slopes, reef channels, and others. This chapter considers three approaches to gathering data on the ecology of multispecies fisheries on coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems. The techniques include remote sensing, fishery independent sampling, and fishery dependent sampling. The average coastline around the world probably has very little detail on coastal charts, and topographic maps will be considerably out of date in terms of defining coastal ecosystems such as reefs, mangroves, nipa swamps, and marshes. Two means of obtaining basic information on the coastal ecosystems include professional aerial mapping and satellite mapping. Fortunately, many developing countries are encouraging the use of ultralight aircraft as economical aids in development.
