Assessment of marine fish stocks within India's Exclusive Economic Zone: Status report 2022

India is one of the major fishing nations in the Indian Ocean, with commercial marine fish landings in the country comprising of nearly 1000 species. A comprehensive and periodic assessment of the stocks is crucial for achieving the goals of sustainable fisheries harvest and management. The ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Govt. of India, is mandated to monitor and assess the marine fisheries resources in the Indian EEZ. In the present study, 135 stocks across 70 species were assessed using monthly length-frequency data. The health status of the stock is projected based on a combination of indicators such as relative biomass or spawning stock biomass (B/Bmsy or SSB/SSB0) and relative fishing pressure (F/Fmsy) estimated using a standard length-based dynamic pool model (i.e., Thompson and Bell Model). Based on the comparison of estimated values of indicators against the thresholds, the stocks were classified as sustainable, overfishing, overfished and rebuilding. The study revealed that 91.1% of the assessed fish stocks have a healthy biomass level (stocks under sustainable and overfishing category), 8.2% of stocks are overfished, whereas 0.7% are in the process of rebuilding.