Sampling methodology employed by CMFRI for collection and estimation of marine fish landings in India

Fisheries sector plays a key role in Indian economy. The sector supports livelihood, nutritional security, and subsistence to large number of people as well as foreign exchange earnings. India’s coast line stretches about 8129 km. There are 1511 landing centres scattered along the coastline of the main land as per the records from National Marine Fisheries Data Centre at Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI). Marine fish landings take place almost all along the coast line throughout the day and sometimes during night. Under these circumstances, collection of statistics by complete enumeration would involve a very large number of enumerators and a huge amount of money apart from the time involved in collection of data. Therefore, a possible solution for quantifying marine fish landings is adoption of a suitable sampling technique. As, monitoring and assessment of the exploited marine fishery resources of India is one of the important mandates of the CMFRI, institute made attempts to evolve the scientific methods for collection of data on catch and effort, since its inception in 1947. Pilot surveys were conducted along the coastline of India and different sampling designs were tested