Characterization and monitoring of potential fishing areas in the exclusive economic zone of Senegal by the method of multicriteria analysis: Contribution of remote sensing and GIS

Abstract

Nowadays, the high frequency and the synoptic nature of the earth observation data are a compulsory tool for a global understanding of the functioning of the earth and more particularly of the ocean. Remote sensing data were utilized in this study to relate the biophysical features of the ocean to the catches of coastal pelagic fish in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in Senegal from 2003 to 2017. The adopted procedure was, on the one hand; the multi-criteria analysis from the biophysical parameters which will give an idea on the availability on the coastal pelagic species in the exclusive economic zones in Senegal. The multi-criteria analysis by weighting made it possible to have a map of the availability of coastal pelagic species from 2003 to 2017 in the EEZ in Senegal. It enable to distinguish three zones of availability: the high availability of species which is observed during the cold season, the average availability taking place in both seasons, and the low availability occurring during the hot season but more concentrated in the south.