The current high demand for fish and increased awareness of the role of the environment in supporting human well being has led to a situation where attitudes to inland water resources are changing rapidly. Trends in resource use and environmental impact are very evident in inland waters which are particularly vulnerable as they act as collectors of all the activities occurring in their basins and rank as some of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. The principle changes influencing the evolution of the aquatic resource for fisheries are described in this book, which has been compiled for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Many fishery biologists and policy makers involved in inland fisheries management and planning are unaware of GIS technology and its potential for fisheries planning and management. The FAO Inland Water Resources and Aquaculture Service (FIRI) has been active for the last 19 years in promoting the use of GIS and remote sensing in fisheries and aquaculture. Promotional activities have been carried out through training, projects, field missions, and oral presentations and publications. However, a manual to use along with GIS software for the fisheries biologists in the field explaining GIS in a way that is understandable to non-GIS users had not been produced until now. This manual was written to overcome this knowledge-gap, it is a "do-it-yourself" manual giving a short introduction to GIS software and its applications in fishery science. The overall objective of this manual is to encourage fishery managers to use this tool (GIS) to foster the sustainable use of natural resources. There are five main sections in the manual: GIS concepts and functions and key tools provided by ArcView 3.x, Geographic coordinate system and map projections, Raster data and analysis, Regression analysis, and Application case studies. All sections are accompanied by exercises that have been designed to illustrate key applications of GIS in inland and marine fisheries management. Also, a custom-designed ArcView grid regression extension is included to show the integration of GIS with surplus production models.

The subregional workshop was aimed at facilitating greater understanding of the issues involved in creating the required enabling environment for sustainable aquaculture development in the Lesser Antilles. Following the sharing of national experiences and the presentation of selected case studies on ongoing subregional aquaculture activities, the issues that have constrained past aquaculture development activities were discussed. The participants recognized the diversities in both the scale and success of past aquaculture activities in the subregion and identified the constraints to and opportunities for sustainable aquaculture development in the subregion.--Publisher's description.