Monitoring of tropical freshwater fish resources for sustainable use

• Published in: Journal of fish biology Vol. 94; no. 6; pp. 1019 - 1025
• Main Authors: Elliott, Vittoria L., Chheng, Phen, Uy, Sophorn, Holtgrieve, Gordon W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2019; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Animals; Biodiversity; citizen‐science; Conservation of Natural Resources; DNA; Earth; earth observation; Ecological monitoring; Ecosystems; eDNA; Environmental DNA; Exploitation; Fish; Fisheries; Fisheries - organization & administration; Fishery data; Fishery resources; Fishes - physiology; Fresh Water; Freshwater; Freshwater ecosystems; Freshwater fish; Governance; Inland fisheries; Inland water environment; Mekong; monitoring; Surveying; Sustainability; Sustainability management; Sustainable use; Tropical Climate; Tropical fish; Mekong; citizen-science; eDNA; monitoring; inland fisheries; earth observation
• ISSN: 0022-1112; 1095-8649
• DOI: 10.1111/jfb.13974

Tropical freshwater ecosystems are some of the world's most biodiverse and productive systems where determining what sustainable exploitation of inland fisheries looks like is particularly challenging. One of the greatest obstacles to sustainable management is collecting and using quality data on fish production and yield. The biodiversity and hydro‐ecology of these systems often under open‐access governance, add to the complexity of managing them. This paper describes an integrated citizen‐science, earth observation, environmental DNA and independent survey approach to collecting fish and fisheries data, using the Cambodian Mekong as a case study.