ESTIMATION OF TUNA FISHING GROUND IN LOW LATITUDE REGION USING SEA SURFACE HEIGHT GRADIENT DERIVED FROM SATELLITE ALTIMETRY: APPLICATION TO NORTHEASTERN INDIAN OCEAN

Abstract

In order to improve the method for prediction of tuna fishing ground, the modification of the analysis about satellite altimeter data was made as trial. In this study, we focused on the satellite altimeter, TOPEX/POSEIDON series, to improve the method of fishing ground prediction. Fishery data were supplied as hook rate by local fishing information around Indonesia and hearing infromation. The gradient of sea surface height is calculated between the neighbor grid which has the maximum gradient. Result showed that the fishery data with hook rate over 0.8 are grouped in a zone from 1.0E-06 of sea prediction of fishing ground quantitatively, but also reasonable accuracy as shown in the change in the standard deviation. This method can be utilized for the effective fishing plan with the resource protection and the economy in the fishing operation in near future. Keywords: sea surface altimeter, sea surface gradient, remote sensing, fishing ground search, hook rate, fishery resource management.