Abrasion is primarily caused by bottom-contacting fishing gear. Current bottom trawl fisheries operate in very specific areas such as along bank slopes, e.g. Hatton Bank, or on seamounts, e.g. Fangorn Bank (Figure 5). These data illustrate that bottom trawl fishing is very patchy and restricted by the spatial management plans introduced by NEAFC. Within the areas that remain open to fishing (existing bottom fishing areas), certain sites and tracks are preferred and fished repeatedly.
No commercial fisheries have operated deeper than approx. 1600 m; thus, a large proportion of the seabed in the area has never been abraded by fisheries. Although vessel monitoring data exist for the area for recent years, the most intense fishing happened prior to the advent of VMS, so it is very difficult to assess the historical abrasion footprint
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