Trend Analysis and Comparison of Forecast Models for Production of Turkish Crayfish (Pontastacus leptodactylus Eschscholtz, 1823) in Turkey

Abstract

This paper aimed to develop forecasting models and to assess the trends in the production of freshwater crayfish in Turkey. Different trend analysis methods (Box-Jenkins method, Şen's innovative trend analysis, Mann-Kendall test) were compared, and different autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were generated to forecast the future trend. The results of the innovative trend analysis methodology and ARIMA models revealed that freshwater crayfish production has a decreasing trend during the study period, although there are some fluctuations. ARIMA models predicted that the production of freshwater crayfish would continue to decrease in the future period. The present paper is also the most temporally rich assessment of the crayfish production in Turkey encompassing 100+ years from 1909 to 2018. Several factors such as climate change, overexploitation, diseases, legal regulations, and fisheries management policies might affect the production amount. Therefore, appropriate policies for fisheries management and legal regulations should be planned and implemented to improve the production.