Fishing in the Past: Historical data on sea fisheries landings in Belgium

In Belgium, centralized reporting on landings of sea fisheries at the species level started in 1929. This paper summarizes the process and the results of integrating time-series, based on fragmented and disperse data sources for the period 1929-1999. The resulting database contains data by species (41), by port of landing in Belgium (4) and in ‘foreign ports’, and by fishing area of origin (31). After quality control, total reported landings over the period 1929-2008 amounted to 3,320,518 tonnes (t), of which 90% was landed in Belgian ports. After a maximum of 75,370 t in 1947, annual landings... Mehr ...