Acronym HYDROGRID
Category
Fisheries
Title Catch control II: Managing trawl catches by improving the hydrodynamic performance of sorting grid sections and codends Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Eduardo Grimaldo Coordinator email Eduardo.Grimaldo@sintef.no
Coordinator institution
SINTEF-SFH - SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture (Norway)
Institutions involved
MRI - Marine Research Institute (Iceland) ,
NA - Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries (Norway) ,
UiT - The Arctic University of Norway (Norway) ,
Start year 2015 End year 2017 Funding (€) € 578,947 Website https://en.uit.no/prosjekter/prosjekt?p_document_id=450986 Summary The large densities of Atlantic cod in the Barents Sea in the last years together with recently discovered malfunctions in the mandatory sorting grids have been leading to excessively large trawl catches. These excessive large catches result in reduced fish quality, and also imply increased risk for discards, gear damage and safety concerns. Therefore, at the request of the industry and management authorities (to try to solve this problem) various catch control devices have been tested in the last two years. Although some of them have shown potential for controlling catch size, they have often failed when simultaneously tested with mandatory sorting grids. The explanation for this failure is mainly related to the significant reduction of the water flow inside the grid section caused by the various combinations of grid, lifting and guiding panels.
The main objective of this project is to develop sorting grid section(s) (combined with a codend) for the Barents Sea demersal trawl fishery that provides high selective performance and good control over catch sizes even when exposed to extremely high catch rates.
The following topics have been identified as the main challenges:
- Design 4-panel grid sections (Sort-V og Flexigrid) in which the components (lifting panel(s), sorting grid(s) and guiding panel(s)) keep constant geometry.
- Increase the grid section's cross section area without (or minimally) increasing the size of the grids.
- Design a lifting panel that minimally reduces water flow and that increases grid contact probability to secure effective size selectivity.
- Design a guiding panel that minimally reduces water flow.
- Test alternatives to the lifting panel in order to improve grid contact.
- Ensure that the new grid section does not increase the risk for occupational accidents when operated.
The main objective is to develop sorting grid section(s) (combined with a codend) for the Barents Sea demersal trawl fishery that provides high selective performance and good control over catch sizes, even when exposed to extremely high catch rates.
Secondary objectives are:
Develop grid section(s) with improved hydrodynamic properties that minimally attenuates water flow and guarantees that fish not accumulate in front and/or behind the sorting grid.
Develop grid section(s) with a bigger cross section area in order to increase sorting capacity under extreme high catch rates.
Improve the design of the mandatory sorting grid section.
Keywords
Cod;
Gear technology;
Trawling;
Fishing technology;
Fish;
Marine Region
42
Barents Sea (27.I)
1
Marine Region Map
