Utility and government services - UK fishing intensity associated with oil and gas pipelines (2007-2015)

The layers provide information on the intensity of mobile fishing associated with Oil and Gas pipelines and cables. Each layer was created by calculating the total number of fishing tracks in 1 km by 1 km squares along the length of each pipeline for four gear categories (see Rouse et al 2017). Fishing tracks were recreated for UK vessels greater than 15 m in length between 2007-2015 operating mobile demersal gear (otter trawls, pair trawls, beam trawlers and dredges) using vessel position data extracted from the Vessel Monitoring System. The layers can be used to aid the pipeline decommissioning process, including assessing the potential impacts and risks of different decommissioning options to commercial fisheries and informing the frequency of post-decommissioning monitoring according to level of fisheries interaction. The layers can also inform risk modelling for operational pipelines.