Majallah-i ̒Ilmī-i Shīlāt-i Īrān (Jan 2017)
Study on catch spatial changes and classifying of beach seine cooperatives in Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea
Abstract
The objectives of the present study were to determine the structure of capture fisheries and to classify the cooperatives who are involved in beach seine fishery of bony fish, based on the amount of capture fisheries production from 2009 to 2012. In this study, the capture production statistics of 123 beach seine cooperatives located in three provinces of Guilan, Mazandaran and Golestan were collected for each species (Rutilus kutum, Liza spp., Cyprinus carpio, Rutilus rutilus, Vimba vimba, Chalcalburnus chalcoides, Alosa spp., Aspius aspius, Barbus sp., Abramis brama, Stizostedion lucioperca and Salmo trutta caspius) and used as input data. According to the results, Caspian kutum represented the highest proportion (66.27%) of total catch among 12 species/groups, followed by mullet, shads and carp with 27.43, 4.26 and 1.32% of total catch, respectively. These 123 beach seine cooperatives were grouped into 3 distinct clusters by performing the complete linkage clustering method and hierarchical cluster analysis. First cluster contained 8 fishing cooperatives. The second and third clusters contained 25 and 90 beach seine cooperatives, respectively. The third cluster had the lowest amount of capture fisheries as compared to the other clusters and these beach seine cooperatives were located in the east and the west parts of the Iranian Caspian coast.
