Expected economic value of the information provided by fishery research surveys

- Information gathering improves management decisions in fisheries that create economic value.
- The expected economic value depends on the management decision maker and the predictive capacity of the information.
- The expected economic value produced by research surveys can be measured, although is not free of some kind of subjectivity.

Information gathering can reduce critical uncertainties and, consequently, lead to better decisions on conservation and exploitation of fisheries. Such decisions might improve the fishing opportunities or lower their variability. However, information gathering comes at a cost. The concept of the expected value of information is based on the idea that decisions will be more accurate if the decision maker has more information. The objective of this work is to use this concept to measure and understand the economic value of fishery research surveys using the mathematical theory of the expected value of information. The Bay of Biscay anchovy fishery is used as an example, given the importance of the surveys in the assessment and management in this fishery. The paper provides a measure of the value of information obtained by research surveys. It also analyses the properties of these values, considering the methodology used, and examines the circumstances under which such calculations are adequate. The sources of subjectivity inherent to this methodology and to the general concept of information signals in the fishery assessment and management are explored.