INCOIS Launches FISH App to Bring Precision to Fishing Industry

The new Android-based mobile application 'Fisheries Information Source Hub' (FISH), developed by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), could bring a major change in the method of providing fishing advisories in the country. Through this app, fishermen will be able to upload geotagged photos of their catch directly while remaining at sea.

According to a report by The Hindu, scientists hope that this data will help develop more accurate and species-specific fishing forecasts. This will enable the fishing community to locate target fish species more efficiently and support sustainable fisheries management.

Approximately 38 lakh coastal residents' livelihoods are linked to India's marine fishing industry. However, the sector is currently facing challenges such as over-exploitation of coastal resources, a decline in the rate of fish caught in coastal waters, and significant income inequality between mechanized and small-scale fishers.

Currently, INCOIS issues daily Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories based on satellite observations of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentration to reduce search time and improve the potential for fish catch. However, developing forecasts for specific species requires a large amount of geo-referenced catch data, which is not available through traditional monitoring systems.

To address this gap, INCOIS has adopted a 'citizen-science' approach, making the fishing community active partners in scientific research. Through the FISH app, fishermen can take photos of the fish caught, which are automatically tagged with location data. This information is sent to INCOIS servers, where its quality is verified and analysed by scientists and fish taxonomy experts.

According to T.M. Balakrishnan Nair, Director of INCOIS, the results have been encouraging. During the pilot phase of 2023-24, more than 1,000 fishermen installed the application, leading to nearly a 20-fold increase in the submission of useful geo-tagged photos. By the end of 2024, INCOIS had received more than 1,000 validated geo-referenced images from various coastal states.

The app is available in 10 Indian languages, including Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, and Bengali. The Director stated that the app is designed to work even without internet connectivity. Fishermen can take photos at sea and upload them once a network becomes available.

Scientists say that the collected data can help create habitat suitability models and future species-specific advisories for commercially important fish, similar to the tuna advisory service operated by INCOIS.

Scientists of the organization researching the app—Dhanya M. Lal, T.N.C. Karthik, Sneha Jha, Chennuri Satish, Susmita Raulo, R. Premkumar, Sanjiba Kumar Baliyasingh, Alkesh Samanta, and Sudhir Joseph—noted that citizen-generated data can complement satellite observations and help fill critical information gaps in fisheries research. Future versions of the app may also provide users the facility to report the number of fish caught, jellyfish blooms, marine debris, and bycatch.