Introduction

Abstract

In China, fisheries refers to the exploitation of economic aquatic animals and plants that live and breed in the sea and inland waters; the rational harvesting, artificial propagation, and cultivation; and the storage, processing, and utilization of aquatic products. Different countries and regions have different understandings of fisheries. For the FAO and the Western countries, fisheries do not include aquaculture. Because fishery is closely related to resources, environment, and climate change, it has the characteristics of seasonality, regionality, and sharing, which are of great significance to the sustainable development of industry and scientific management. The fishery discipline is an applied discipline. In addition to the traditional disciplines such as fishery resources science, fishing science, and aquatic products processing science, some new disciplines have emerged continuously due to the development of science and technology and the need of the fishery discipline itself, such as marine fishery remote sensing, fishery resources economics, fishery forecasting, fishery GIS, artificial intelligence fishery and so on. On the basis of introducing different fishery concepts, this chapter deeply analyzes the natural characteristics of fishery resources, the characteristics of fishery industry, and its development trend. At the same time, the research content of fisheries, the constitution of fishery discipline system, and the function of fishery in national economy are put forward. Learning this book can provide the basic concepts and elements of knowledge necessary for those who will be engaged in fisheries or related work.