Status of marine fishery environment research in India

Environmental factors play a major role in controlling the abundance and distribution of marine organisms. The field of fisheries oceanography can be said to have started in the 1870s when S. F. Baird, a fisheries biologist and the first US Fish Commissioner, recognized the important role of the environment in fluctuations of fish stocks. The development of multidisciplinary approach initiated in recent times linking physical, chemical, biological, geological and meteorological aspects has helped substantially to understand the important oceanic processes and utilise the resources in the best way possible. The parameters, which have direct relationship with growth, reproduction, abundance and distribution of marine organisms, are mainly temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, pollutants, water currents, transparency etc. All these parameters vary depending on the topography, latitude, seasons and prevailing atmospheric conditions