Fishery Oceanography From Space

The exploration and utilization of world oceanic fishery resources have been limited in the past for lack of a technology which could provide the observations required for rapid assessment, real time intelligence, or the environmental monitoring necessary to determine the space time ecosystem relationships on which a predictive system could be based within usable time factors. The space agency has undertaken an extensive study to determine if it would be economically feasible to develop a satellite system to survey the resources of the earth. This satellite would be equipped with various types of sensors which operate on the principle that each object on earth reflects, absorbs, or re-emits energy in a manner characteristic of the object\u27s physical and molecular structure giving each its own spectral signature. The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Exploratory Fishing and Gear Research Base, Pascagoula, Mississippi, in cooperation with the National Aeronautics Space Administration\u27s Spacecraft Oceanography Project, is engaged in a program which seeks to apply existing remote sensing technology to the problems of fishery resource assessment, i.e., the location, identification, and quantification of surface and near-surface fish stocks. Several approaches are being taken in this effort. These include studies of the reflectance spectra of fish schools and associated surface fish oil films; the intensity and spectral emittance of bioluminescence associated with most schools, which may permit night-time detection of fish schools through the use of low-level light sensors; and the possible application of a pulsed laser system which may provide a means for locating fish schools at sub-surface depths. Results of studies conducted in these areas by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Pascagoula Base, are the subject of this paper and are discussed in the following sections