Analysis of fishing in the Mediterranean region

In our world, three quarters of which is covered with water; therefore, fishing has been an important source of income from past to present. With the increase in fishing activities, the ships, which started to be produced according to the needs, started to be used in the determination of fish areas, fishing, storage and transportation of fish. When the Mediterranean Region is considered, it is seen that its surface area is quite large. This situation provides a great economic contribution to these coastal countries. Aquaculture and fishing activities provide the biggest income item of the economic benefit from the sea. These conditions and regional developments led to the formation of a large fishing fleet in the Mediterranean. This fleet is used for coastal fishing, but also for medium-distance fishing, long-distance fishing and offshore fishing, and can encounter difficult sea conditions. In this context, it is very critical to determine the design criteria of fishing vessels. Especially in our country, the shipbuilding process, which was shaped by the wishes and decisions of shipbuilders and boat owners in the 2000s, gained a contemporary engineering understanding and became professional with the intervention of international inspection organizations. In today's increasing global competition, in parallel with the increasing fuel prices, it is very important that the design parameters of fishing vessels are at optimum levels. Although every country studied is on the Mediterranean coast, the Mediterranean region is exposed to very different meteorological conditions as it covers a wide geography. For this reason, rather than making a general inference for the whole region, it would be a more accurate approach to examine the fleets and to determine the design rates on the basis of countries. Fishing fleets are kept under control, especially in the European Union countries, both with the regulations applied to prevent overfishing and with the quotas applied in the construction of new fishing vessels. For this reason, it is very important for the fleet to have efficiency and the highest design criteria. In our country, with increasing efforts in recent years, fishermen and consumers have been made aware and seafood farming is encouraged. For the first time in Turkish maritime history, open sea fishing started, and the length of the ships reached up to 50 meters. In this context, it can be said that the fishing trend has started to change in our country. Within the scope of this study, Moroccan, French, Spanish, Italian and Turkish fishing fleets existing in the Mediterranean scale and including the last twenty years were examined in detail and suggestions for improvement were presented.