Golden Grey Mullet – Chelon auratus – Habitat Suitability Index (HIS)

The Black Sea Fisheries Digital Twin is implemented in the north western part of the Black Sea. Covering the shores of Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine, this use case aims to provide a modern, intuitive tool for the fishermen. 

The DT provides access to valuable information, such as favorable areas for specific species, in order to help fishermen to maximize the economic efficiency of their activities. The DT is to identify the favorable conditions for fishing. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) is implemented to reflect the optimal conditions for specific species. In this specific case, the HSI is calculated for Golden Grey Mullet – Chelon auratus – a highly economic-important species from the Black Sea.

For the HSI a couple of parameters were used:

1. Temperature: Black Sea High Resolution and Ultra High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature Analysis - SST_BS_SST_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_010_006 and Black Sea Physics Reanalysis - BLKSEA_MULTIYEAR_PHY_007_004 (CMEMS);

2. Salinity: Black Sea Physics Reanalysis - BLKSEA_MULTIYEAR_PHY_007_004 (CMEMS);

3. Primary Production: Black Sea Biogeochemistry Reanalysis - BLKSEA_REANALYSIS_BIO_007_005 (CMEMS);

4. Sea Surface Height (SSH) and currents velocity: Black Sea Physics Reanalysis - BLKSEA_MULTIYEAR_PHY_007_004.

5. Dissolved oxygen concentration: Black Sea Physics Reanalysis - BLKSEA_MULTIYEAR_PHY_007_004.

6. Marine fronts (generated based on temperature products);

7. Bathymetry: GEBCO - General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (UNESCO IHO/IOC).

File type - single band geotiff

Temporal resolution - daily - 2018.01.01-2020.12.31

Spatial resolution - 1km

Data type: Float32 - Thirty-two-bit floating point

File naming convention - hsi_1km_20180101 - Habitat Suitability Index _ spatial resolution 1 km  _ date

Inside the archive, the .sld file helps you to symbolize data within a GIS or WEB GIS environment.