The Development of a Stock Management and Reporting System for Taal Lake Fisheries and Sardinella tawilis Conservation (SMARt Taal System)

Overfishing, illegal fishing, and the use of active gear have contributed to over a 90% decrease in the population of S. tawilis’ which led to its status as endangered in 2018. A gap was identified in the workflow of its conservation due to the heavy reliance on manual pen-and-paper methods in conducting stock assessments to assess and monitor the status of fisheries in the Taal lake. Though there are existing software that aim to automate data collection processes, they are incompatible with the conservation methods in place. The SMARt Taal System, which comprises a mobile application for automated data collection and a real-time database for data access and monitoring, was developed to address this gap. Field enumerators are the main end-users of the mobile application while the database is for the NFRDI-FFRDC Admins. Beta Testing via a 5-point Likert Scale User Experience Evaluation Survey was conducted with the end-users wherein results from their feedback show mean scores of 4.36/5 for Functional Suitability, 4.40/5 for Usability, 4.33/5 for User Satisfaction, and 4.51/5 for Accessibility. These show that the SMARt Taal System met all functional requirements and is useful for the more efficient collection of data for the conservation of the Taal Lake. Future developments of the software system may then serve as a template for more efficient ways of conducting stock assessments for other bodies of water in the Philippines or data collection methods in general for biodiversity conservation