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The Growler field produces oil from the middle Birkhead formation. The main production area is a low relief four-way dip closure consisting of channel reservoir with thickness of ~15-20m that has been mapped from the 3D seismic amplitudes and confirmed by wells. Interpretation of the thin and lower quality oil reservoirs in the form of secondary channel and floodplain sandstone deposits from the seismic has not been successful. The inability to discriminate and delineate the geological and/or fluid facies is the main challenge to further explore and develop the field. The challenge is worsened by the uncertainty in the well logs and the poor-quality nature of land seismic data. An advanced pre-stack geostatistical inversion study has been carried out aiming to solve the observed key issues: i) discrimination of different reservoir facies from elastic properties derived from 3D seismic amplitudes; ii) enhancement of the quality of the seismic to resolve the inherent uncertainty associated with the AVO responses; iii) mitigation of the ambiguity of false AVO anomaly due to carbonaceous shale that had led to unsuccessful drilled well. The applied geostatistical inversion study workflow includes iterative seismic petrophysics and rock physics modeling to produce a good quality and consistent set of well logs; robust seismic data conditioning for removal of coherent and incoherent noises, and alignment of seismic events, with the resultant seismic AVO response calibrated with well data; deterministic inversion of conditioned multiple angle stacks and litho-facies estimation using Bayesian inference to provide understanding on the intricacies of the aforesaid challenges before application of geostatistical inversion. Joint facies and elastic properties inversion facilitated by Bayesian-based geostatistical inversion using Multigrid Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm has resulted in highly detailed subsurface facies models that show excellent match at most of the 14 blind wells not used in the study., Open-Access Online Publication: May 29, 2023

Beach Energy has successfully discovered and produced hydrocarbons from the Western Flank of the Cooper Basin since 2002. Beach Energy's entire acreage is covered by good quality Pre-Stack Time Migrated Seismic Data (Pre STM). Multiple drilling campaigns executed over the years have confirmed that structure and migration are the most significant risks to finding additional hydrocarbons in the area. Since an assessment of the pre-drill gross rock volume (GRV) is crucial to inform future exploration campaigns, extensive efforts were made to fully understand the GRV distribution using a stochastic approach and the risks associated with the presence of four-way closures. Once the depth conversion project is completed, exploit the value of the latest stochastic technology and the benefits of a PreStack Depth Migration (PreSDM) reprocessing. The risks (probability of a structure being present), uncertainties (GRV distribution) and reservoir depth estimation were validated by the post-drilling results of 13 exploration and appraisal wells. Drilling results confirmed that the chosen approach is more precise and accurate than previous attempts to quantify risks and uncertainties using the same input data., Open-Access Online Publication: May 22, 2023

Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report is the 10th of a suite of STECF EWG reports dedicated to the evaluation of the implementation of the Western Mediterranean Sea Multi-Annual management Plan (hereafter, MAP), following EWG reports 18-09, 18-13, 19-01, 19-14, 20-13, 21-01, 21- 13, 22-01 and 22-11. The group was requested to continue the development of socio-economic indicators to be used in the evaluation of management measures for the West Med MAP in both West Med management units (EMU1 and EMU 1) (TOR1). Two roadmaps were discussed, a short term approach and a long term approach which would consider the expansion of all the mixed-fisheries bio-economic models to both management units. As a first step, the group focused on the proposal of harmonizing the economic indicators across the models implemented (TOR2). The group was than requested to further develop the approach implemented during EWG 22-01 to identify persistence hotspots of the six target species of the West Med MAP using scientific survey data (MEDITS) in combination to commercial spatial data (VMS joined with logbooks), to test existing and additional closure areas (TOR 3). The group was also requested to revise Article 8 of the 2023 fishing opportunities for the West Med MAP (COUNCIL REGULATION (EU) 2023/195), which lists the compensation mechanisms that MSs can implement within the West Med MAP to obtain additional fishing days in 2023 (TOR 4). For TOR 1 a roadmap was discussed and proposed on how to organise the work on socio-economic assessments for the West Med MAP in 2023. The EWG suggests that here should be a three-step process: a scoping exercise (done with EWG 23- 01), a meeting with stakeholders in the middle of the year to discuss their perception of the socio-economic consequences of measures of the West Med MAP and the running of scenarios during EWG 23-11 with results from socio-economic assessments. The EWG notes that the modellers have only the five-day meeting in September to run scenarios. Therefore, it would be crucial for the success of the assessments that the 6 scenarios provided by DG Mare for the EWG 22-11 and with some adjustments for EWG 23-01 will not change for EWG 23-11. It is crucial because those scenarios are already implemented in the models and the implementation of new scenarios would take a lot of time. The EWG proposes to run a few additional scenarios with only one measures to separate impacts of certain measures from the six scenarios where a mixture of measures is included. This would hopefully allow to give an indication what additional efforts may be necessary to reach MSY (in 2025 but also beyond in case the objective is not reached by 2025) and when gains from the implementation of the West Med Plan could be expected. The EWG observes that modelers need to put in additional effort and resources to improve the models for an improved assessment of the West Med MAP. The models were not originally developed for the assessment of the West Med MAP and only cover parts of the area of the Western Mediterranean. Such an improvement of the models could also include work to provide longer-term socio-economic assessments of measures where modelers need to take additional assumptions into account. The EWG notes that it would be beneficial if modelers receive a basic list of assumptions for key economic variables before the EWG 23-11 meeting in September. In 2022, for example, the increased fuel costs were an important factor regarding the economic performance of the fleets. In 2023 fuel costs have decreased but there are other cost categories with a substantial increase. The EWG concludes that DG Mare should not change the 6 provided scenarios substantially before the EWG 23-11 meeting in September. This would allow the modelers to run the models during the meeting and provide the socio-economic results. The EWG concludes that STECF and DG Mare should further discuss how resources could be provided to modelers to improve the applied models. The EWG concludes that the chairs of EWG 23-01 and 23-11 will provide a list of assumptions for the implementation of the models regarding key variables for the socio-economic assessments (short- and long-term). For TOR 2 the EWG discussed what variables and indicators the applied models include and provide. From that discussion a list of indicators was developed for which modelers will be able to provide results in the EWG 23-11 report. The EWG concludes that a list of indicators is provided for which EWG 23-11 will present results in autumn 2023. For TOR 3 the EWG notes that new closure areas for 2023 were implemented only by Spain (EMU 1) (Orden APA/80/2023). All closures areas implemented under the West Med MAP are described to allow testing if their implementation would reduce the catches of juveniles and adults of the six target species of the MAP by 15-25%. The EWG notes that the methodology followed to prioritise, developing and updating closure areas based on their conservation value on the basis of existing closures, proposed closures from EWG 22-01 and new proposals developed by EWG 23-01 based on updated MEDISEH layers is similar to the one used during EWG 22- 01. Updated MEDISEH layers were used for priority species (ARA, MUT and HKE) in combination with old MEDISEH layers for other species and distribution maps of commercial effort from EWG 22-01. Calculation of the percentage of the trawlable GSA area closed to fishing is higher in EMU 1 than EMU 2, therefore the estimation of additional closure areas on top of the existing ones foccused on this management unit. Additional closure areas to test were based on persistence hotsposts from survey data and from areas of high effort in order to impact directly on the reduction of fishing mortality. The EWG notes that the exisiting and additional closures could be tested only in EMU 2 and GSA 7 as for GSA 1, 5 and 6 the extension of the spatially-explicit model ISIS-Fish is not complete yet and it is still limited to a single species (HKE). The EWG notes that closure areas in GSA 7 were tested with two different methods. A static method comparing effort distribution data before and after the closures implementation in 2020, and a dynamic method applying ISIS-Fish. The first method showed how the establishment of the spatio-temporal closure imposed a strong seasonal constraint to the fishing effort in the Gulf of Lions, and that the fishermen community responded quite well to the new rule, although vessels increased their fishing effort along the closure border, with a typical « fishing the line » pattern, especially in the fall. The second model showed that introducing an additional closure did not improve the rebuilding of the hake stock, while changing the closures from seasonal to permanent suggested the strongest effect. The EWG notes that in EMU 2 that temporal closures for the whole fleet reduce global effort while additional spatial closures increase effort towards coastal areas (depths

Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines This report documents the outcomes of STECF Expert Working Group 22-09: 2022 stock assessments of demersal stocks in the western Mediterranean Sea from the meeting held remotely from 5th to 11th September 2022. A total of 20 fish stocks considered and 18 were fully evaluated. Two stocks had prior advice from 2021 with catch advice for 2022 and 2023, and this is reiterated here. The EWG reports age based assessments, target Fs, with short term forecasts for 15 of the remaining 18 stocks, of these 15, 12 were also analysed for biomass reference points. Catch advice for three stocks was based on ICES category three evaluations of biomass indices. The content of the report gives the STECF terms of reference; the basis of the evaluations; assessments, reference point calculations; summaries of state of stock and advised catch or F based on either the MSY approach for assessed stocks and category 3 based advice for those without assessments. The report contains the full stock assessment reports for the 15 assessments, the exploration of assessments and category 3 evaluations for the remaining three stocks. The report also contains the STECF observations and conclusions on the assessment report. These conclusions come from the STECF Plenary meeting November 2022. European Union Published Refereed

Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report documents the outcomes of STECF Expert Working Group 22-16: 2022 stock assessments of demersal stocks in the Adtiat ic, Ionian and Aegean Seas from the meeting held in Rome from 17th to 23th October 2022. A total of 16 fish stocks were considered and 15 were fully evaluated. The EWG reports age based assessments, target Fs, with short term forecasts for 9 stocks of the remaining 6 stocks, four of these do not have short term forecasts as he assessments are not suitable, and one is given ICES category 3 advice. The content of the report gives the STECF terms of reference; the basis of the evaluations; assessments, summaries of state of stock and advised catch or F based on either the MSY approach for assessed stocks and category 3 based advice for those without assessments. The report contains the full stock assessment reports for the 14 assessments, the exploration of assessments and category 3 evaluations for the remaining stock. The report also contains the STECF observations and conclusions on the assessment report. These conclusions come from the STECF Plenary meeting November 2022. European Union Published Refereed

Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report, on methods for supporting stock assessment in the Mediterranean (STECF-21-02), addresses the data checking and preparation for stock assessment once the data has been submitted following the annual data calls. The report provides an overview of the data errors and quality control carried out on both commercial landings data and MEDITS survey data. The analyses reported also address the small fraction of commercial catch with sampling gaps, and how these are assigned appropriate length frequency distributions. The results of these check and assignments are provided by species, GSA and country. Quality checks were carried out on Medits data check consistency of the main reporting files and highlighting where data inconsistencies occurred. Additionally the total landings reported to the European Commission under the Black & Med-Sea data call, the Fisheries Independent Data call and the Annual Economic Report data call were compared at species aggregated to GSA. Some important differences were observed and these are reported. In addition the EWG reviewed a technical report on the sampling of commercial catch in the Greek Fisheries, the review and some suggested further work are included in this report. European Union, Joint Research Centre Published Refereed

Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report is from STECF Expert Working Group 21-15: 2021 stock assessments of demersal stocks in Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean Seas from the meeting held remotely from 18th to 22th October 2021. A total of 9 fish stocks were evaluated. One stock had prior advice from 2020 for 2021 and 2022, and this is reiterated here. Index advice for 2022 and 2023 is provide for one other stock. The EWG reports age based assessments and short term forecasts for 5 of the remaining 7 stocks and surplus production assessments for two stocks. The content of the report gives the STECF terms of reference, the basis of the evaluations and advice, summaries of state of stock and advised based on either the MSY approach for assessed stocks or the precautionary approach for category 3 based advice. The report contains the full stock assessment reports for the 7 assessments, the exploration of assessments and category 3 evaluations for the remaining five stocks. The report also contains the STECF observations and conclusions on the assessment report. These conclusions come from the STECF Plenary meeting November 2021. European Union Published Refereed

Main fishery stock assessment methods needs not only fishery dependent information but also fishery independet information which are, in almost all the cases, derived from scientific surveys at sea. In the Mediterranean Sea the main fishery independet information come from the Mediterranean International Trawl Survey (MEDITS) carried out since 1994. Primary Medits data such as, haul information, catches in weight and number by hauls and biological data of target species are routinely collected and stored in dedicated files. These file are made available to the STECF EWG stock assessment meetings through an official Data Call launched by DGMare. This tool developed as an R script gives the opportunity, starting from these files, to compute standardized biomass and density indexes and length frequency distributions, checks hauls positions and other main hauls characteristics and many other useful outputs., JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resources

The aristeids Aristaeomorpha foliacea and Aristeus antennatus are two species of great economic importance in the Mediterranean Sea, where they are exploited almost exclusively by bottom trawlers. We analysed their geographical and inter-annual patterns using data collected, following a standardized protocol, during the MEDITS international experimental bottom trawl surveys. The data used consisted of standardized abundance and biomass indices, size structure and individual biological information collected in the northern Mediterranean for more than two decades. Several univariate and multivariate methodologies were used to analyse the data. The current study confirms previous findings, such as the longitudinal gradient in the relative presence of the aristeids, but also offers additional information for a better understanding of the intrinsic variability of the data over the years and between areas. Moreover, geographical variability in the somatic condition index is discussed, taking into account the role of environmental conditions and fishing pressure. The large geographical variability found for both species in this regional approach reflects the importance of additional studies at a small-scale geographical level. Such studies could be particularly important for managing and ensuring the stability of these species, for which large regional approaches may be inadequate., Los aristéidos Aristaeomorpha foliacea y Aristeus antennatus son dos especies de elevada importancia económica en el Mar Mediterráneo, donde se explotan casi exclusivamente con arrastreros de fondo. Se han analizado sus tendencias geográficas e interanuales utilizando datos recogidos, siguiendo un protocolo estandarizado durante las campañas con arte de arrastre de fondo experimental internacionales MEDITS. Los datos utilizados fueron índices de abundancia y biomasa, la estructura de tallas e información biológica individual, recogidos en el norte del Mediterráneo durante más de dos décadas. Los datos recogidos se han analizado mediante diferentes metodologías univariantes y multivariantes. Este estudio confirma algunos resultados previos, como el gradiente longitudinal de su presencia relativa, pero también añade información adicional que permite comprender mejor su variabilidad intrínseca a lo largo de los años y de las áreas. Además, se discute la variabilidad geográfica del índice de condición somática teniendo en cuenta el papel de las condiciones ambientales y de la presión pesquera. La gran variabilidad geográfica descrita para ambas especies en esta aproximación regional refleja la importancia de estudios adicionales a menor escala geográfica, lo que podría ser particularmente importante para la gestión de estas especies, para las que una amplia aproximación regional podría no ser adecuada para asegurar la sostenibilidad de estos importantes recursos marinos.

615 pages, Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This reportis from STECF Expert Working Group19-10: 2019stock assessments ofdemersal stocks in the western Mediterranean Seafrom the meeting in Arona Italy from 9thto 15rdSeptember 2019. A total of 19 fish stocks were evaluated. The EWG reports age based assessments and short term forecasts for 15 of the 19 stocks. Catch advice for the other four stocks was based on ICES category 3 evaluations of biomass indices. The content of the report gives the STECF terms of reference, the basis of the evaluationsand advice, summaries of state of stock and advised based on either the MSY approach for assessed stocks or the precautionary approachfor category 3 based advice. Thereport contains the full stock assessment reports for the 15 assessments, one full category3 evaluation and briefre-evaluations and validations of the 2018 results for the final three stocks for which two year’sadvice was given in 2018.The report also contains the STECF observations and conclusions on the assessment report. These conclusionscome from the STECF Plenary meeting November 2019

130 pages, Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report is the fourth of a suite of STECF EWG reports dedicated to the fishing effort regime in the Western Mediterranean Sea, following EWG reports 18-09, 18-13 and 19-01. The group wasrequested toprogress on an operational mixed-fisheries model for Effort Management Unit 1 (i.e. GSAs 1-2-5-6-7), to update mixed fisheries models and F-E analyses with the most recent data and the most recent stock assessments., and to draft amixed-fisheries advice including relevant scenarios and displays. In EMU 1, good progresses were achieved in combining effort and catch data from both France and Spain into the bioeconomic multifleet model IAM. The model is now able to run and perform management simulations on the stock of hake (combined assessment in GSAs 1-2-5-6-7). Time did not allow to include additional stocks at this stage, but the required elements are now in place and adding these should be fairly straightforward in the future.The updates of the F-E analyses performed in EWG 18-09 and 18-13 with the most recent time series did not change the perception of the lack of relationship between fishing effort and fishing mortality. For many stocksand fleet segments, the relationship using effort expressedas fishing days has no obvious slope, indicating that the limited reduction of effort observed in the recent years did not have any visible effect on reducing fishing mortality yet.Supplementary analyses were performed using effort expressed in hours instead of days, which improved the relationship to some extent. This is consistent with previous statements in previous reports that fishing effort would be best expressed and managed in terms of fishing hours than fishing days:Extended simulation work was performed regarding management scenarios, especially in EMU 2 (GSAs 8-9-10-11). The multi-fleet BEMTOOL model was updated and extended, and 6 scenarios involving effort reductions, sometimes combined with spatial closures, were simulated in a stochastic approach. Also, the individual-based spatial model SMART was updated, and the outcomes of the spatial closures scenarios was used to parameterise the spatial scenarios in BEMTOOL. Finally, the simpler NIMED model was also updated and run, but its results were not compared to the two other models. In EMU 1, the IAM model (hake alone) was used to perform 3 runs of effort reduction, one of them including a French proposal for a spatial closure in the Gulf of Lion. Finally, a 3-pages synthetic advice is proposed, summarising the key findings of the simulations. A key outcome is that the proposed closure of the coastal zone down to 100 m deep, max 6nm from the shore, is unlikely to contribute to reducing hake catches. Rather, it can have an adverse effect if the fleets reallocate their effort further away where important concentrations of juvenile exists. In the light of the F-E relationships analyses, all results presented in this report are considered to be overoptimistic since they assume a true reduction in F if effort decreases, which may in reality be limited during the first years of effort reductions

WKNSMSE (Workshop on North Sea stocks Management Strategy Evaluation) took place over two physical meetings (19-21 November 2018 and 26-28 February 2019, but at ICES HQ, Copenhagen) and several WebEx meetings, was chaired by José De Oliveira (UK) and included 30 participants from Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK and the European Commission, and two reviewers from South African and New Zealand. The purpose of this work was to evaluate long-term management strategies for jointly-managed stocks in the North Sea (cod, haddock, whiting, saithe and autumn-spawning herring) between the European Union and Norway, following a request from EU-Norway. The first physical meeting provided an ICES interpretation of the EU-Norway request, agreed the specifications of the MSE, decided on the tools and approaches to use, and developed a work plan, while the second meeting (and subsequent follow-up WebEx meetings) discussed results, developed conclusions, ensured the minimum requirements for conducting MSEs (developed by WKGMSE2) were met, and finalised the report. ICES were tasked to find “optimal” combinations of harvest control rule parameters (Ftarget and Btrigger) for management strategies with or without stability mechanisms (TAC constraints and banking and borrowing scenarios). “Optimal” combinations were defined as those combinations of Ftarget and Btrigger that simultaneously maximised long-term yield while being precautionary (long-term risk3≤5%). The request also asked for sensitivity tests once the management strategies were “optimised”. The approach adopted for all stocks was to include the assessment and forecast in a full-feedback MSE simulation, and to condition the baseline operating model on the benchmarked ICES assessment. The one exception was haddock, where it was not possible to include TSA in the full-feedback simulation because it was too slow to converge and requires manual intervention; SAM was used instead as a reasonable approximation. The approach also considered alternative operating models to capture a broader range of uncertainties. Full-feedback simulations were computationally challenging and required the use of parallelisation and high-performance computing; it also meant that the time-frame for the work was extremely tight, and in some cases, analyses were restricted. Nonetheless, the work was completed for all stocks, and “optimal” combinations for most management strategies were found. There were some notable issues that arose through this suite of MSEs, including that some management strategies that were precautionary in the long-term could have unsavoury and avoidable features in the short term (depending on the management strategy), and that reference points estimated by EqSim were, in many cases, no longer found to be precautionary in the MSE.

Since 2007, the Scientific Technical Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF), for which Joint Research Centre (JRC) runs the Secretariat and all the data collection process, started collecting and organizing information on Mediterranean and Black Sea fisheries, and since 2009 performing standardized stock assessments on these fisheries during STECF expert working groups (EWGs). The stock assessment results have been documented in more than 30 reports STECF EWGs (https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/medbs). Stock assessments performed during the STECF EWGs employ different approaches and tools, however, models implemented in the Fisheries Libraries in R (FLR, http://www.flr-project.org) were the most used. After almost 10 years of stock assessments in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, JRC extracted available stock assessment data from digital repositories of EWGs and compiled a STECF reference database. From each assessment contained in the STECF reports yearly time series of stock variables such as:Total Catch (total weight of all fish in the stock), Recruitment (total number of individuals entering yearly in the population), Spawning Stock Biomass (total weight of all sexually mature fish in the stock) and Fishing Mortality were extracted. The assessments data are made available through an online interactive dashboard under the STECF Data dissemination web page (https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dd/medbs/ram) that allow readers to compare and contrast several stock assessments variables. Each stock assessment is linked via an URL to the original source of the stock assessment. According to EU CFP - Common Fisheries Policy (Reg. EU 1380/2013 and Reg. EU812/2015) all EU commercial fish stocks should be fished at a maximum sustainable yield (Fmsy). Biological reference points, Fref (Fmsy or a proxy as F 0.1 ) and were subsequently used to assess if the level of exploitation (F/Fmsy) is in line with the CFP objectives (F/Fmsy≤1) or not (F/Fmsy >1). The STECF database is the reference database for the computation of the Common Fisheries Policy monitoring indicators for the Mediterranean and Black Sea (https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/43805/2092142/STECF+18-01+adhoc+-+CFP+Monitoring+2018.pdf) To ensure traceability and foster reproducible scientific research, all the data, code and references part of the compilation process are hosted on GitHub, a well-known version control software platform. The target audience of the dashboard ranges from governments, fisheries institutes, stakeholders, NGO’s and common citizens that want to check the status of marine fisheries resources evaluated. A copy of the Mediterranean and Black Sea STECF stock assessment results will be included, for the first time, in the next release of the RAM legacy database: a voluntary contributed worldwide stock assessments database, RAM legacy, (http://ramlegacy.org/). The RAM Legacy database includes fish stock assessments from all around the world’s oceans, and provides a unique source of information to make comparisons between fisheries and to perform global analysis of stock status., JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resources

Simmonds, John... et. al.-- This report was reviewed by the STECF during its 54 th plenary meeting held from 27 to 31 March 2017 at JRC, Ispra, Italy.-- 428 pages, Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4-10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. The Expert Working Group meeting of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries EWG 16-17 was held from 19 Nov - 25 Nov 2016 in Ispra, Italy to assess the status of demersal and small pelagic stocks in the Mediterranean Sea against the proposed FMSY reference points.The he report was reviewed by the STECF plenary in March 2017

The Mediterranean and Black Sea list of stocks to be used for computing the indicators was based on a ranking system approach for which the species having a rank in the first ten positions either in total live weight or total economic values were chosen. Landings and economic values for the Mediterranean and Black Sea (FAO area 37) provided by “2016_STECF 16-11 - EU Fleet Economic and Transversal data tables” were used. The reference years were 2012 and 2014 (the last three years available for all the GSAs) and, as geographic strata, the Geographical Sub Areas (GSAs) belonging to EU countries and for which data were available were considered. In the top ranking 10 stocks based on both in terms of live weight and economic value by GSA applied to AER Landings, many combined/nei groups categories were selected. Based on local expert knowledge it was possible split some mixed categories at species level while, it was decided to drop from the list both the misreporting species and the mixed categories for which it wasn't possible defined clearly the species composition. Eventually 230 stocks were selected., JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resources

The a4a approach to Management Strategies Evaluation ( MSE ) is to develop a set of common methods and procedures to build a minimal standard MSE algorithm. This has the most common elements of both uncertainty and management options. Such a tool set should allow for the development of MSE simulations for many fisheries in an operational time frame. Between the 30th of January and the 3rd of February, in Ispra, Italy, the JRC organized a workshop on development of MSE algorithms with R/FLR/a4a. The workshop was a mix of hands-on coding and discussion/implementation of concepts associated with MSEs. The participants used the most recent version of the a4a MSE code, modularized the most important processes and developed their own version of several processes so that the MSE could model and test alternative management procedures to the one initially coded., JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resources

Osio, Giacomo ... et al.-- This report was reviewed by the STECF during its 53 rd plenary meeting held from 24 to 28 October 2016 in Brussels.-- 500 pages, Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4-10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. The Expert Working Group meeting of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries EWG 16-13 was held from 26- 30 Sept. 2016 in Barza, Italy to assess the status of demersal and small pelagic stocks in the Mediterranean Sea against the proposed FMSY reference points. The report was reviewed by the STECF plenary in October 2016

A medium-term (10 year) stochastic forecast model is developed and presented for mixed fisheries that can provide estimations of age-specific parameters for a maximum of 10 stocks and 10 fisheries. Designed to support fishery managers dealing with complex, multi-annual management plans, the model can be used to quantitatively test the consequences of various stock-specific and fisheryspecific decisions, using non-equilibrium stock dynamics. Such decisions include fishing restrictions and other strategies aimed at achieving sustainable mixed fisheries consistent with the concept of maximum sustainable yield (MSY). In order to test the model, recently gathered data on seven stocks and four fisheries operating in the Ligurian and North Tyrrhenian Seas are used to generate quantitative, 10 year predictions of biomass and catch trends under four different management scenarios. The results show that using the fishing mortality at MSY as the biological reference point for the management of all stocks would be a strong incentive to reduce the technical interactions among concurrent fishing strategies. This would optimize the stock-specific exploitation and be consistent with sustainability criteria., JRC.G.4-Maritime affairs

The application of statistical models on a time series of data arising from the MEDITS International Trawl Survey, an experimental demersal resources survey carried out during six years (1994-1999) in the same season of the year (late spring - early summer) using the same fishing gear in a large part of the Mediterranean, has allowed for a study to compare, for the first time, the space-time distribution, abundance, and size structure of the two Aristeids Aristaeomorpha foliacea and Aristeus antennatus throughout most of the Mediterranean Sea. This research has shown a large variability among the six reference areas, that were arbitrarily defined within the basin. In particular the two shrimps do not seem to present any correlation or yield continuity in the years. The same lack of homogeneity was also observed in the time trend of the abundances and frequencies of each of the two species. These data seem to confirm the intrinsic variability of the species, the cause of which is still unknown and undocumented. Nevertheless, a longitudinal gradient of catches has been observed where A. antennatus is more abundant in the west and A. foliacea in the east of the basin., No disponible