PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTS FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

Abstract: No adequate technology has to our knowledge so far been developed for reliable online monitoring of har-vested fish quantities. We demonstrate in this study that multiphase measurement technology successfully applied in the petroleum industry for measurements of pipeline flow of oil and gases (Nilsson, 1989; Stalheim, 1991; Halvorsen, 1992) also can be used for objective recording of withdrawals from the sea (Spilde, 2001). Our results show that the multiphase flow method represents a quantum leap with respect to quantitative mea-surement accuracy, reliability, and objectivity in fish catches measurement and reporting, compared to the conventional practice of manual level measurement (Røttingen et al., 2002) within the on-board fish tanks. We conclude that modern resource management by adopting this technology can be taken to a new level through objective, online monitoring, substantially reducing uncertainties and unknown factors