Monitoring migrating fish is an expensive task, making it difficult to undertake in order to comply strictly with the WFD monitoring requisites. A concrete evidence of such burden is, at the scale of the project, the effort and budget allocated for this purpose (in this case required, in order to allow for exact assessment of the project’s outputs and benefits, essential to ensure further replication).
Taking from now this issue into consideration, LIFE ÁGUEDA includes two specific actions that are directed at essay and evaluation of possible solutions to mitigate such costs on the post-project, while allowing to comply with the WFD needs. We expect these to be potentially replicable to other locations where identical requirements are a problem:
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the first, under implementation by the Municipality of Mora – which has a strong background in working with recreational fishermen – seeks a citizen science approach directed at engaging fisherman on gathering and sending data on fisheries (e.g. on species, dimensions, distribution areas, among others). It will have for basis a smartphone app, based on analogous concepts as those applied to gather other ecological data, but in this case with a special focus on gathering information that is useful for WFD’s monitoring needs;
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the second, to implement by the University of Évora / MARE, will focus on essaying the use of more cost-effective, continuous monitoring of fish crossing of obstacles, having for basis the installation of passive bio-telemetry solutions and fish marking with Passive Integrated Transponder.
If, as expected, these solutions reveal cost-effective and adequate for their aims, their replication may reveal a strong contribution to compliance with the WFD’s monitoring requisites, namely throughout other EU geographies and locations where monitoring of migrating fish is a real need.