The digital transformation of global fisheries: a review of governance shifts and economic impacts

This paper reviews the digital transformation of marine capture fisheries, drawing on literature published between 2016 and 2025. It examines three interconnected dimensions: the foundational digital technologies now deployed across fisheries systems, the governance changes these technologies drive, and their economic consequences for efficiency, cost structures, and welfare distribution. The evidence shows that satellite monitoring, electronic monitoring, data analytics, and blockchain-based traceability have materially improved compliance capacity and market transparency in well-governed contexts, while producing data concentration, quota consolidation, and exclusion of small-scale fishers elsewhere. These divergent outcomes indicate that digital transformation is not a self-executing solution to fisheries management problems. Similar technologies produce very different results depending on regulatory capacity, institutional design, and how data governance is arranged. Addressing these conditions, particularly the risk that efficiency gains increase total fishing effort rather than reduce resource pressure, and that compliance requirements exclude small-scale producers in developing countries, should be a central concern for researchers and fisheries managers.