Fish Forever tracks key data to support sustainable coastal fisheries. Discover what we measure, how it’s collected, and where to explore the data on trusted platforms.
Understanding and Exploring Fish Forever Data
3,000+
Coastal Communities
40,000+
Household Surveys
Daily
Catch Monitoring
Quarterly
Reporting
Learn how data is gathered through community-driven methods
Six Core Resilience Factors
Fish Forever measures community resilience through six interconnected factors that reveal how well communities can respond to challenges, adapt to change, and sustain their fisheries over time.
Coastal Fishery Policy & Governance
Strong policy creates the foundation for effective community management. Without legal recognition of preferential use rights and delegated management authority, coastal communities cannot control how the resources they depend on are managed.
Effective Coastal Fishery Co-Management
When communities and government work together to manage fisheries, both people and marine resources thrive. Effective co-management means local fishing communities have legally recognized authority over defined ocean areas where they can set fishing limits, enforce regulations, and protect critical habitat.
Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change
Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to coastal communities, from rising sea levels to coral bleaching events. Communities aware of their vulnerabilities and actively implementing adaptation measures are better able to respond to and recover from these disturbances.
Capacity for Collective Action
Sustainable fisheries management requires more than rules and enforcement. It depends on communities’ ability to recognize shared interests and work together toward common goals. Collective action builds resilience by enabling communities to look out for one another and unite to cope with disturbances.
Sustainable Livelihoods & Food Security
Communities with secure livelihoods are more resilient because financial stability provides options when facing disturbances. When households can meet their basic needs, they have the flexibility to follow fishing regulations, participate in management, and invest in long term sustainability.
Coastal Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services
Healthy marine ecosystems provide the foundation for everything else. Protected habitats generate the ecological and economic services coastal communities depend on, from fish production to storm protection. The combination of habitat protection with sustainable harvest management creates resilient systems.
Multiple Methods, One Complete Picture
Fish Forever uses multiple data collection methods to build a complete picture of coastal fishery health. From underwater ecological surveys to household interviews to daily catch monitoring, our integrated approach combines environmental science with community knowledge.
At a Glance
Household & Community Surveys
Face-to-face interviews capturing socioeconomic data, livelihoods, food security, and community perspectives on management.
Catch Data Collection
Daily fishing activity monitoring through OurFish app used by fish buyers at landing sites.
Underwater Ecological Surveys
Direct observation of coral reefs, fish populations, and marine habitat health by trained divers.
Climate Vulnerability Assessments
Comprehensive evaluations combining ecological and social data to measure climate resilience.
Management Activity Tracking
Monitoring of policy adoption, governance processes, and management body effectiveness.
Geospatial Data & Mapping
GIS tools defining boundaries, mapping critical habitats, and tracking spatial changes over time.
Detailed Information
Household & Community Surveys
Understanding Community Wellbeing and Social Dynamics
Household surveys form the backbone of our socioeconomic data collection, capturing the human dimensions of coastal fisheries management. These surveys reveal how communities experience management interventions, whether households can meet their basic needs, and what social conditions enable or hinder collective action.
What We Measure
Our standardized survey covers core questions across multiple domains:
- Demographics and household composition
- Livelihoods and fishing activities
- Household assets and financial resilience
- Social capital, trust, and collective efficacy
- Fishery management participation and compliance
- Food security and household income
How It Works
Trained enumerators conduct face-to-face interviews using digital forms on tablets or smartphones via KoboToolbox. Households are randomly selected from complete community lists to ensure representative sampling. We aim for proportional gender representation, interviewing both men and women to capture diverse household perspectives.
Survey Timing
Household surveys are conducted at program start and after three-year implementation cycles to measure change over time. Where funding permits, we also survey non-program sites as controls to isolate Fish Forever impacts from broader regional trends.
Fisheries Catch Data Collection
Tracking Daily Fishing Activity and Harvest Trends
OurFish is an Android application that transforms how we monitor small-scale fisheries by putting data collection directly into the hands of fish buyers and landing site monitors who record daily transactions.
What We Measure
Each transaction entry captures:
- Species caught with standardized naming
- Weight and market price
- Fishing location and gear type used
- Effort expended (hours, fuel, crew)
- Buyer and fisher identification
User-Centered Design
The app mirrors traditional paper logbooks familiar to fish buyers, minimizing learning curves and adoption barriers. Users see immediate benefits for their own businesses through better bookkeeping, purchase tracking, and sales insights, creating strong incentives for consistent use.
Scale and Coverage
Once adopted at a landing site, OurFish generates dozens of transaction records daily, building near-real-time fisheries datasets. We continuously expand coverage to new sites by demonstrating value to fish buyer cooperatives and market managers.
Underwater Ecological Surveys
Measuring Marine Ecosystem Health and Recovery
Direct underwater observation by trained surveyors provides the ecological data essential for understanding habitat condition, fish population dynamics, and ecosystem responses to management interventions.
What We Measure
Ecological surveys quantify:
- Coral diversity and hard coral cover
- Fish species composition and functional diversity
- Fish size distributions and biomass
- Benthic substrate composition
- Critical habitat presence and condition
Survey Methods
We primarily use MERMAID (Marine Ecological Research Management AID), a specialized platform where divers enter observations directly underwater or immediately after surfacing. This digital approach eliminates transcription errors and enforces taxonomic standards and measurement protocols.
Integration Power
Ecological data connects with fisheries and community information to reveal relationships between ecosystem health and human outcomes. For example, combining MERMAID fish biomass data with OurFish catch trends shows whether marine reserves generate spillover benefits to adjacent fishing zones.
Climate Vulnerability Assessments (CCVA)
Evaluating Capacity to Adapt and Thrive Under Changing Conditions
CCVAs provide comprehensive evaluations of both ecological and social vulnerability to climate change, identifying specific threats facing each community and their capacity to respond.
Assessment Components
The CCVA framework examines five dimensions:
- Exposure to physical climate changes (bleaching, sea level rise, hazards)
- Ecological sensitivity (coral and fish susceptibility, habitat presence)
- Ecological adaptive capacity (diversity, biomass, protected areas)
- Social sensitivity (economic dependence on fisheries)
- Social adaptive capacity (credit, infrastructure, governance, education)
Mixed Methods Approach
CCVAs combine satellite and GIS data for climate metrics, ecological surveys for reef indicators, household surveys for social capacity measures, and participatory community workshops for local knowledge and perceived vulnerabilities.
Actionable Outputs
CCVA results directly inform adaptation measures incorporated into management plans, such as identifying coral bleaching refugia for protection priority, targeting livelihood diversification programs, or strengthening infrastructure in vulnerable areas.
Management Activity Tracking
Monitoring Implementation of Co-Management Systems
The MA+R Tracker and Fish Forever Data Manager capture progress on management body formation, policy adoption, regulatory frameworks, and governance processes.
What We Track
Management indicators include:
- Decision-making processes and meeting schedules
- Policy instrument adoption and legal recognition
- Fisher registration completeness
- Biological reference point establishment
- Habitat protection regulations and fishing rules
- Compliance and enforcement implementation
Data Quality
Role-based permissions ensure data entry by authorized personnel. Regular reviews by regional coordinators validate entries against field observations and policy documents. Automated dashboards flag missing data or anomalies for follow-up.
Impact Framework Integration
Management tracking provides most indicators for the Coastal Fishery Policy and Governance and Effective Coastal Fishery Co-Management resilience factors, revealing which management components are strong and where capacity building should focus.
Geospatial Data & Mapping
Defining Boundaries and Protecting Critical Habitats
GIS tools create the spatial foundation for management by delineating managed access areas, mapping marine reserves, identifying critical habitats, and tracking habitat changes over time.
Core Spatial Datasets
We maintain:
- Managed access area and marine reserve boundaries
- Habitat type distributions (coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves)
- Fishing ground maps from participatory exercises
- Traditional territorial waters
- Existing marine spatial plans and protected areas
Data Sources
Spatial data combines satellite imagery analysis, participatory mapping workshops with communities, government databases and official maps, and field-verified GPS boundary surveys.
Applications
Spatial data enables reserve network design using ecological connectivity models, calculation of habitat protection percentages for impact metrics, enforcement planning and patrol route optimization, and site selection for program expansion based on ecological priority and connectivity.
Access Our Data Platforms
Fish Forever data is available through multiple platforms designed for different user needs. From community dashboards to detailed research datasets, explore the platform that best serves your goals.
Impact Framework
Interactive dashboards measuring coastal resilience across six interconnected factors, spanning policy, socio-economic, and ecological dimensions providing a comprehensive view of community and ecosystem health.
Best for: Program staff, partners, community leaders
FishMAT Tool
The Fisheries Management Assessment Tool provides a platform to assess small-scale fisheries, visualize data, and use adaptive management to achieve fishery goals.
Best for: Program staff, partners, community leaders
CCVA Platform
Brings together vulnerability assessments, interactive maps, and AI-assisted insights so that governments, NGOs, and fishing communities can design smarter adaptation strategies.
Best for: Researchers, data scientists, policy analysts
MERMAID Platform
Marine ecological survey data including coral reef health, fish biomass, benthic composition, and habitat assessments from Fish Forever sites.
Best for: Marine biologists, conservation scientists, reef managers
Data Access Principles
Transparency
We believe in open access to data that supports evidence-based conservation and community empowerment. Our platforms make Fish Forever data discoverable and accessible to diverse audiences.
Privacy & Protection
Individual household data remains confidential. Public datasets are aggregated to community level to protect respondent privacy while enabling meaningful analysis and learning.
Community Ownership
Communities own their data. Local management bodies receive dashboards and reports tailored to their needs, enabling data-driven decision making at the community level.
Quality Standards
All published data meets rigorous quality standards. Comprehensive metadata, data dictionaries, and methodological documentation accompany every dataset to ensure proper interpretation and use.
Data Quality Across All Methods
Every data stream follows rigorous standards to ensure accuracy, consistency, and reliability
Standardized Protocols
Documented SOPs for every collection method
AI Insights
Advanced analytics revealing patterns and trends in data
Quality Control
Multiple verification checkpoints
Training
Standardized enumerator certification
Metadata Standards
Complete documentation for all datasets