ObServe: Database and operational software for longline and purse seine fishery data

Observation data collected aboard fishing vessels are essential to describe the impact of fisheries on fish community. The Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, France) has been sending observers aboard tropical purse-seiners since 1995 in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and longliners since 2007 in the Indian Ocean. Since 2005, IRD is appointed by the European Union (EU) and the French Direction des Pêches Maritimes et de l’Aquaculture (DPMA, French government) to conduct scientific observations aboard French vessels to monitor tropical fisheries in the framework of EU Data Collection Framework (DCF). To monitor this program, the Observatoire Thonier (OT) from IRD has been developing since 2010 an information system named ObServe that is intended to manage data collected in the framework of DCF. ObServe consists of (i) a central database based on PostgreSQL, (ii) a Java-based software used for data acquisition and management, and (iii) data synchronization features between these two modules. This system was originally dedicated to purse-seine fisheries but now supports longline ones. Furthermore, historical data were transfered into ObServe that now covers 1995-2015 for purse-seine observer data and 2002-2015 for the pelagic longline. ObServe was designed to be generic in order to cover the needs of any observation program of purse-seine or longline fisheries. ObServe is being used by several institutes, administration and companies that carry out observer surveys on purse-seiners: IEO and AZTI (Spain), SFA (Seychelles), Oceanic Development (France), BiGeye (Ivory Coast), Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises (France), and longliners: Hydrô Run (Reunion Island, France) and Le Parc Naturel Marin de Mayotte (France). ObServe is an open source system and can be easily adopted by other partners that have to manage observer data for purse-seine and longline fisheries.