Learn more about this FITS-hosted symposium “Merging Data Science and Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences to Solve Big Problems.”

Advancing technologies and software have allowed us to collect and process enormous amounts of data (aka “big data”). Big data are data that are too large in volume, high in velocity, and/or varied in structure to share, manipulate, or analyze using traditional software tools or analytical techniques. The quantity and rate of data collection in some instances have outpaced our technological capabilities for data transfer and analysis. These challenges may discourage or prohibit the exploration of research and management questions that have the potential to collect or synthesize large datasets. In theme with the 150th meeting of the American Fisheries Society to “Learn from the past to meet the challenges of the present”, this symposium will highlight case studies in which research is harnessing the potential of big data to provide new approaches and perspectives into the management of fisheries and aquatic systems, that in the past, may have been overambitious or simply unattainable. All stages of research and development in this area are welcomed. Along with fisheries examples, we greatly encourage non-fisheries examples that involve, but are not limited to, water quality, climate, habitat, and geospatial datasets.