Tier systems for fisheries assessment and management are widely used, but defined differently by jurisdiction. A principal component analysis was applied to the expanded Australian Commonwealth 8-tier system for fishery assessment and management to determine whether it adequately delineates across stocks according to data availability and quality. The original Australian tiers comprised four levels that were defined primarily according to the available stock assessment options, given the data availability and quality. We asked fishery experts to score information quality for each of the main Australian Commonwealth species and/or fisheries. Multivariate analysis indicated that the eight tiers delineated between the extreme tier levels on the first principal component, although there was overlap for intermediate tiers. More generally, it is important that the aim of tier systems and the basis for tier delineations are explicitly defined given the increasing association of tiers with trade-offs between overfishing risk, management cost and catch.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	fishery assessment, risk-cost-catch, risk equivalency, tier systems
Research Division:	Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences
Research Group:	Fisheries Sciences
Research Field:	Fisheries Management
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge in the Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences
Author:	Little, LR (Dr Richard Little)
Author:	Smith, DC (Dr David Smith)
Author:	Sporcic, M (Dr Miriana Sporcic)
Author:	Fulton, EA (Dr Elizabeth Fulton)
ID Code:	118311
Year Published:	2016
Web of Science® Times Cited:	3
Deposited By:	Directorate
Deposited On:	2017-07-10
Last Modified:	2018-05-10
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