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7 June 2018 - Traceability aspects

Meeting Notes
Topics: 1) Traceability, connection between stocks and fisheries and the definition of fishing area.

Participants:
FishSource (Susana Segurado, Braddock Spear)
RAM (Michael Melnychuk)
FAO (Paula Anton, Aureliano Gentile, Anton Ellenbroek)
CNR (Pasquale Pagano)
FORTH (Nikos Minadakis)

Skype URL: https://join.skype.com/iRaCbTv06O7C

Notes

Traceability

Former discussions and material

  1. https://support.d4science.org/projects/stocksandfisherieskb/wiki/18-05-09-GRSF_validation - minutes of the call held on the 9th of May 2018 regarding Traceability aspects and GRSF pilot release.

The following best practices for connecting records were drafted.

  • In case of a marine resource without assessment, the area of marine resource should be the species distribution area (the best case). If any assessment unit is available for that species, then the marine resource area should be compiled by subtracting the area of the assessment unit(s) (a feature not available today in GRSF).

  • Under this definition, there should be no more than one marine resource per species or taxon.

  • One or more GRSF record with type Fishing Unit can be CONNECTED to a Marine Resource when no matching assessment units are available. As this is the best information available on that resource at the moment.

  • The Fishing Unit connected with a Marine Resource can be also FLAGGED for traceability, but with the caveat that no overlaps (even if partial) should be in place with other relevant assessment units.

    Type of stock-to-fishery connections
    1-to-1 : 1 assessment unit -to- 1 fishing unit, simplest case for traceability and scoring purposes
    1-to-n : 1 assessment unit-to-multiple fishing units, in case the assessment unit is a multispecies assessment or for overlapping (partial) distinct fishing units (e.g. multiple countries using potentially multiple gears fishing the same resource)
    1-to-n : 1 marine resource-to-multiple fishing units, in case of unassessed resource
    n-to-1 : multiple assessment units (or resources) to one fishing unit, DEPRECATED, this type of connection is not helpful for traceability purposes

  • An Alert should be made when a new assessment unit is added in the GRSF since it may alter the unassessed marine resources structure, and may justify changing the associations for certain current fishing units.

Additional notes

  • The "Unascertained" FishSource records fall under the GRSF type "Marine Resource", but are currently not structured under the proposed definition.

  • A decision is need on how to identify a marine resource in the semantic identifier, whether using areas or using an alternative identifier like "unassessed".

  • The type “Other fishery” is so far not considered for connections.

  1. https://support.d4science.org/projects/stocksandfisherieskb/wiki/17-09-26_GRSF_validation - discussion held on the 26th of September 2017. At that time it was preferred the following option 2-(Fishery ID + Assessment area) e.g. asfis:COD + assessarea:xxxx + fao:21.3.M + grsf-org:INT:NAFO + rfb_comp:NAFO + isscfg:OTB + iso3:LTU Such “enriched” identifier could be the “traceability identifier” generated once you connect a stock with a fishery (through the GRSF management panel) and the system returns a new semantic identifier which can be used for traceability purposes (in whatever way, TBD in consultation with CNR and FORTH).

Recommendations

Given the above considerations the group recommended the following:

  • A stock (assessment unit of marine resource) can be connected to 1 or more fishing units as per above best practices.
  • A fishing unit connected to multiple stocks is to be avoided although feasible (the management panel allows any type of connection).
  • The area field for the fishing unit is, as per GRSF specifications and definitions, the Fishing Area or the Management Area according to the type of information provided by the database sources (FishSource, FIRMS, RAM), a data-driven approach.
  • The Traceability flag should be activated automatically when a connection is established (former requirement was the activation of the flag only when a fishing unit has all metadata, species-area-gear-flagstate-mngt_authority). No manual flag activation.
  • The GRSF record page should be enriched with a new section Traceability Unit with the following information:

Name, UUID, semantic identifier of the connected records
Traceability identifier(s) Stock + Fishery: <Species> + <Assessment Area(s)> + <Fishing Area(s)> + <Management Authority(ies)> + <Gear type> + <Flag State>
The field species could be repeated in case of not exact matching, i.e. family/genus vs. species
The Traceability identifier is the concatenation of the two semantic identifiers of the connected records (species being there only once)
The connection is an annotation for the concerned records in the GRSF knowledge base
Such annotation can be retrieved through webservices for further uses (e.g. FishSource receive an API with the relevant information on traceability units)
Developers are encouraged to further explore blockchain technology for such Traceability identifier
Data managers are encouraged to further explore classification systems for the GRSF area field, including the UN Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (M49), Marine Regions Geographic Identifier (MRGID), and Global Location Number (GLN).

Follow-up actions

  • FishSource (and GRSF team) to confirm the requirements and proposed solution
  • CNR and RAM to make a plan and proposal for implementation

Resources

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