This was mainly due to the
availability of spatial information in these zones obtained mainly from
satellite imagery. Although fisheries applications gradually expanded to
offshore waters, covering all of the oceans by the 1990s, the number of
marine applications is still limited when compared to the terrestrial realm
(Table 1).
Caddy and Garcia (1986), Meaden and Kapetsky (1991), Simpson (1992),
Meaden and Do Chi (1996), Meaden (1996), and Booth (2000a) outline three
issues that have hampered the growth and implementation of fishery GIS.
The first is financial, associated with the costs to collect aquatic biological,
physicochemical, and sediment data. These costs, together with extra costs
related to synthesizing large spatial databases into a useable format, hav