Resource allocation in the North Sea demersal fisheries: A goal programming approach

The management of a fishery is a complex task generally involving multiple, often conflicting, objectives. These objectives typically include economic, biological and social goals such as improving the income of fishers, reducing the catch of depleted species and maintaining employment. Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques appear well-suited to such a management problem, allowing compromises between conflicting objectives to be analysed in a structured framework. In comparison to other fields, such as water resource planning, forestry and agriculture, there have been few applications of MCDM to fisheries. In this paper, a goal programming model of the North Sea demersal fishery is presented. The model is used to demonstrate the potential applicability of this type of approach to the analysis and development of fisheries management plans with multiple objectives. Alternative scenarios are considered for the problem, and trade-offs between given objectives are also highlighted and discussed.