The FAO global capture production database: A six-decade effort to catch the trend

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2011.10.024

Marine Policy

Volume 36, Issue 3, May 2012, Pages 760-768

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2011.10.024 Get rights and content

Abstract

With data series extending for 60 years, including catch data for almost 1850 species items, and reflecting geo-political, historical and natural events, the FAO capture database provides a service to the community interested in fishery information. Over 600 articles from refereed journals cited the database in the last 15 years. Species included grew significantly in the last decade and an analysis of annual reporting showed more timely data submissions, although the number of non-reporting countries remained stable throughout the years. An evaluation of data quality found over half developing countries reporting inadequately but also one-fourth of reports by developed countries were not satisfactory. This article also provides meta information on historical developments, data sources and coverage, and advice on what should be kept in mind when using the database for trend studies.

Introduction

The FAO global capture database is largely used (see citation analysis in Section 5.3) to analyze global, regional and national catch trends by country, fishing area and species. However, this article written in the occasion of six decades of data available in the database does not add a further trend study but intends to cover most meta information aspects that may be of interest to the database users. It also aims at increased transparency on the procedures followed by FAO in gathering and compiling the data submitted by national correspondents, the use and relevance of other data sources, and the production of estimates for not reported data. Statistics on countries’ annual submissions are also revealed.

Section snippets

A bit of history

The function of collecting, analyzing and disseminating data and information relating to ‘agriculture’ – including fisheries – is embedded in Article 1 of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Constitution, and has been performed since the establishment of the organization, which dates back to 1945. The first issue of the FAO Yearbook of Fisheries Statistics [1] was published in Washington, D.C., USA. It included 1930–1946 officially reported or published data by a

Data sources

Catch data and other fishery statistics are generally submitted to FAO by national correspondents in the appropriate ministry or institution. At about May every year, FAO sends to correspondents paper and electronic versions of standard questionnaires and encourages reporting through them. However, to facilitate data submission, any format in which the national statistics are stored is accepted by FAO. The deadline to return data to FAO is the 31st August. As soon after this date, FAO starts to

Statistics on countries’ annual reporting

Although in the Article XI of the FAO Constitution is clearly stated that all member countries should communicate regularly statistics and other technical information available to the government to allow FAO compiling and disseminating data on global trends, not all countries submit their annual fishery statistics to FAO. Failing to report is mainly due to the fact that for several countries is difficult to collect reliable catch statistics in a continuous manner, as it is a costly activity

What should be kept in mind when using the database for trend studies

The quality of the statistics included in the FAO capture databases is mostly dependent upon the accuracy and reliability of the data collected and provided by countries. When analyzing aggregated or global trends, the number of countries, the size of FAO fishing areas and the extended species coverage included in the database often play a buffer effect. Despite significant annual variations by country, fishing area and species, recent global total catch trend has been quite stable in the last

Conclusions

As demonstrated by the citation analysis, the service provided by the FAO global capture database to the community interested in fishery information during the last 60 years is relevant but the need for reliable data in the fishery sector is felt now more than ever. Once the continuous catch increase reported by China for many years has been settled and revised (see Section 3.3), figures for total global catches have been rather steady in the last four years (2006–2009) and also estimation and

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