The FAO/DANIDA project GCP/INT/575/DEN “Training in Fish Stock Assessment and Fishery Research Planning” organized some 100 Training Courses and Workshops dealing with fish stock assessment from 1983 to 1998. This document is based on lecture material that was gradually developed for three high-level regional courses given in 1996 at IMARPE, in Callao, Peru for Latin America, in cooperation with the Comisión Permanente del Pacífico Sur (CPPS), in 1997 in Hillerød, Denmark for countries bordering the Baltic Sea in cooperation with the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and in 1998 at NATMIRC in Swakopmund, Namibia for Angola, Namibia and South Africa, in cooperation with the Nansen Programme. The material was further tested in a course held in Valparaiso, Chile in December 1999, organized under a bilateral agreement between Chile and Denmark.
The following scientists have contributed to the contents of this manual and the accompanying exercises: Ana-Maria Caramelo (FAO), Pavel Gassioukov (Russia), Renato Guevara (Peru), Eskild Kirkegaard (Denmark), Hans Lassen (ICES), Jean-Jacques Maguire (Canada), Paul Medley (UK), Christian Riise (FAO), Henrik Sparholt (ICES), Bernard Vaske (Namibia), Siebren Venema (FAO) and Alejandro Zuleta (Chile).
The lecture material underwent gradual modifications and finally a draft manual was produced by Hans Lassen in 1998. This draft was subsequently revised and expanded by Paul Medley, in close cooperation with Hans Lassen. For this work some funds were used of the FAO/Norway FISHCODE project GCP/INT/648/NOR.
ICES kindly gave permission to use selected data sets for the exercises. Use has been made of software provided by Numerical Recipes Software, Cambridge MA, USA, for which permission was requested
The document covers most of the stock assessment methods that are presently in use in countries and areas where sophisticated data collection systems provide the necessary data. It is the last, and most advanced manual in a series on fish stock assessment and data collection, developed between 1983 and 1998 by the FAO/DANIDA project GCP/INT/575/DEN.
In addition to the printed document, a compact disk is provided that contains a series of exercises and examples that should facilitate the application of these methods in countries where good data are being made available.
Siebren C. Venema
Project Manager
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Lassen, H.; Medley, P. Virtual population analysis. A practical manual for stock assessment. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 400. Rome, FAO.
2001. 129p. ABSTRACT Virtual Population Analysis (VPA) is a widely used model for
the analysis of fished populations. While there are very many VPA techniques,
they vary in the way they use data and fit the model rather than in the form of
the model itself. This manual describes the common VPA model and the assumptions
on which it is based, together with descriptions of associated diagnostic
procedures and common reference points. More importantly, the manual describes
the numerical techniques which can be used to fit the model based on weighted
least-squares, which is the basis for the ADAPT approach. The techniques are
described so that they are readily implemented in a spreadsheet. General methods
and specific examples are given to enable the readers to develop an approach
suitable for their own data and fisheries. |
DANIDA
NORWAY/NORAD
Participants in FAO/DANIDA training courses and
lecturers
Regional Fisheries Management Bodies and Research
Councils
All FAO Members and Associate Members
All FAO Offices
FAO Fisheries Department
Fisheries Research Institutes
Other interested Nations, International Organizations,
Universities and NGOs
