Publication Abstract

The Workshop on Estimation of Commercial Catches using the RDBES (WKNatEst) was held to support national institutes and national data providers in the transition to using the RDBES to calculate their national estimates of commercial landings and discards. The workshop provided a forum for each institute to present their progress to date, discuss challenges encountered and anticipated, and share ideas and R-scripts.

Progress towards using RDBES for national estimates varied between institutes, with some at the stage of developing their understanding of the RDBES data format, and others having achieved estimation of the landings or discards of one or two stocks. However, it was evident that all participants were at a very early stage of progression towards meeting the planned switchover to using RDBES data for all catch estimates in 2027, within the TAF framework (RDBES roadmap).

The key issues identified during the meeting were:

• Progress on adapting R-scripts to a new data structure is slow, as it involves substantial adaptation and data checking. Therefore, participants considered the goal of moving to RDBES for all stocks in 2027 to be extremely challenging to meet.
• There are many uncertainties around the TAF structure, and the lack of training specific to national estimators and data providers makes the transition slower.
• The increasing number of data calls throughout the year makes it difficult to allocate time and resources to the RDBES transition.

Proposals developed:

• Feedback from participants indicated that workshops dedicated to the development of scripts, with peer support, are beneficial to making progress. Therefore we propose that further workshops similar to WKNatEst are required.
• To address a knowledge gap in the TAF framework, a dedicated workshop for national estimators is necessary to provide targeted TAF training and aid the development of a TAF structure/template that better suits their needs.
• To allow data providers more time to attend workshops and develop their scripts to meet the 2027 deadline, ICES needs to assess its priorities. One proposal is to halt benchmark data calls for two years to free time to focus on the transition to RDBES.

Maciej Adamowicz; Liz Clarke; Jessica Craig; Adriana Nogueira Gassent; Nicolas Goni; Anthony Hennessey; Maria Korta; Katarzyna Krakówka; Katja Noren; Eros Quesada; Ana Ribeiro Santos*; Lucia Zarauz;

Workshop on Estimation of Commercial Catches using the RDBES (WKNatEst)