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Copyright of Journal of Integrated Coastal Zone Management / Revista de Gestão Costeira Integrada is the property of Associacao Portuguesa dos Recursos Hidricos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of the present study was to carry out a comparative analysis of fishery systems in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil (western coast of South America, between 18 and 22°S) using the Rapfish method – a rapid, innovative assessment model of fishery sustainability consisting of a multivariate ordination analysis of ecological, technological, social and economic data. The fisheries were divided into 26 fishery systems according to type of fleet, gear, target resource, ecosystem and environmental characteristics. A series of variables categorized in numeric scales from one to five were determined for each system. The attributes were compared through multivariate techniques. The comparison between fisheries in the state reflect the characteristic small-scale fisheries of the region, with minimal state intervention in management. The analysis of the social dimension revealed that the correlations between systems were mainly associated to the degree of isolation of the communities. The analysis of the ecological dimension revealed a clear coast/open ocean gradient and urbanized centers/isolated locations gradient related to the degree of commitment to the environment with regard to anthropogenic impact and the availability of resources. The economic and technological dimensions were arranged by variations in product destination, cost of fishing gear and degree of technology employed. The management dimension exhibited little sensitivity to the multivariate method employed. Few systems stood apart due to the few existing management measures that differentiated them. The pattern of sustainability found in the kite diagrams displays a balance between the dimensions in the perspective of maximum approximation to the optimum sustainability index. Either overfished and better socio-economic conditions, or marginalized people with use a more more sound strategy of resource exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]