Development of a recruitment index for forecasting seasonal landings of the Kuwait shrimp fisheries

The seasonal landings and preseason survey data for the Kuwait shrimp fishe ry were analyzed. Mean catch rates in the preseason surveys in the southern area in July and August might serve as a recruitment index for the fishery . A combined-species model and a single-species model for Penaeus semisulca tus explained 96 and 89% of the variance, respectively. These parametric mo dels together with nonparametric methods were then employed to forecast the 1997 to 1998 season's shrimp landings before the season opened. The nonpar ametric models produced better forecasts than the parametric models. Finall y, a general discussion about parametric and nonparametric methods for fish ery forecasting was presented.