Assessment product for good environmental status of marine quota fish stocks for the UK Marine Strategy 2024

The UK Marine Strategy assessment product for commercially exploited marine quota fish shows the Good Environmental Status (GES) for descriptor 3. The assessment of environmental status for commercially exploited fish stocks is based on the integration of results from fishing pressure and reproductive capacity indicator assessments following a conditional method (ICES, 2016) where both indicators’ criteria need to be met for each stock.

The 2024 UKMS assessment for marine quota fish uses a stock assessment data from 2016 to 2021 to calculate of percentage of stocks being within safe biological limits considering 6-year period where required data is available to integrate two indicators assessments, reproductive capacity (based on spawning stock biomass) and fishing pressure (based on fishing mortality), and compared with previous assessment cycles (2010-2015, 2004-2009). Full details on the UKMS assessment are published at https://moat.cefas.co.uk/pressures-from-human-activities/commercial-fish-and-shellfish.

Details on the data set used for this assessment product are available at the following data-doi; Campón-Linares, V , McIntyre, R and Garnacho, E. (2025). Fish and shellfish stock assessments data for the UK Marine Strategy 2004 assessment of descriptor 3. Cefas, UK. V1. doi: https://doi.org/10.14466/CefasDataHub.173