Exploring spatiotemporal trends in commercial fishing effort of an abalone fishing zone: a GIS-based hotspot model

Assessing patterns of fisheries activity at a scale related to resource exploitation has received particular attention in recent times. However, acquiring data about the distribution and spatiotemporal allocation of catch and fishing effort in small scale benthic fisheries remains challenging. Here, we used GIS-based spatio-statistical models to investigate the footprint of commercial diving events on blacklip abalone (Haliotis rubra) stocks along the south-west coast of Victoria, Australia from 2008 to 2011. Using abalone catch data matched with GPS location we found catch per unit of fishing effort (CPUE) was not uniformly spatially and temporally distributed across the study area. Spatial autocorrelation and hotspot analysis revealed significant spatiotemporal clusters of CPUE (with distance thresholds of 100's of meters) among years, indicating the presence of CPUE hotspots focused on specific reefs. Cumulative hotspot maps indicated that certain reef complexes were consistently targeted across years but with varying intensity, however often a relatively small proportion of the full reef extent was targeted. Integrating CPUE with remotely-sensed light detection and ranging (LiDAR) derived bathymetry data using generalized additive mixed model corroborated that fishing pressure primarily coincided with shallow, rugose and complex components of reef structures. This study demonstrates that a geospatial approach is efficient in detecting patterns and trends in commercial fishing effort and its association with seafloor characteristics.

Weldability and machinability of duplex stainless steel

This chapter investigates two important processing methods, such as welding and machine of duplex stainless steel. The welding process welding generally degrades the properties of these materials by redistributing the phases during melting and solidification. On the other hand, the redistribution during machining mainly take place combined effect of stress, strain rate and temperature. Mechanism of machining process and several welding methods has been analysed in details. It was found that outcomes of welding processes depend on the welding methods. Most of the cases an appropriate annealing process can be used to restore the expected properties of the weld joints though the parameters of annealing process are different in different welding methods. Nonmetallic inclusions and the low carbon content of duplex stainless steel reduce the machinability of duplex stainless steel. SEM and optical microscopic details of the frozen cutting zone and chips revealed that the harder austenite phase dissipates in the advancement of the cutting tool, being effectively squeezed out of the softer ferrite phase. Abrasion and adhesion were the most common wear modes developed on the flank and rake faces. Adhesion wear being the most prevalent on the flank face, appeared to be initiated by built-up edge formation.