AI tool from AZTI seeks to improve fisheries management and sustainability efforts

Responsible Seafood Advocate

AZTI’s new AI tool enhances fisheries management by quickly identifying fish species and reducing bycatch

fisheries management
AZTI’s new AI tool enhances fisheries management by accurately classifying pelagic species, improving data processing efficiency and reducing bycatch, as detailed in recent research.

AZTI, a leading research center in the fishing industry, has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool to improve the management and sustainability of commercial fisheries.

The AI model automatically classifies pelagic species like anchovy, sardine and Atlantic mackerel in the Bay of Biscay based on their schooling behavior.

Using sound technology, the AI tool can spot changes in fish behavior, which helps in managing these species more effectively. The AI model, trained with incomplete data, provides a confidence score for each fish it identifies, helping to ensure accuracy in its predictions.

The use of AI with sonar and echo sounder data on fishing vessels shows promise for improving fisheries management. Automatically identifying fish schools not only speeds up data processing but also increases the accuracy of annual assessments of pelagic species distribution and abundance.

This technology could also boost efficiency and sustainability by significantly reducing bycatch. Results published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science reported 63.5 percent accuracy in classifying labeled schools, and about 80 percent when including both labeled and unlabelled data.

“Automating species identification not only reduces data processing times for scientific surveys but also provides new opportunities to study the schooling behavior and develop new technologies for increasing the efficiency and sustainability of the fishing industry,” said Aitor Lekanda, a marine scientist doing his PhD in AZTI.

Read the full study here.

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