Geostatistics is a branch of spatial statistics that was originally developed for the mining industry. The technique is now widely recognised as an important tool for the estimation of the abundance and distribution of natural resources. However, new developments have been required to extend its application to fisheries science, particularly in variogram estimation. This important new title describes the fundamentals of geostatistics in terms more familiar to life-scientists, and uses case studies on seven commercially important fish stocks to demonstrate its application to fisheries survey data. Comprehensive and practical advice is given on how this new method can be used to estimate the abundance (with an appropriate measure of precision) of fish stocks worldwide. Geostatistics for Estimating Fish Abundance will be of vital interest to fisheries research scientists, marine biologists, oceanographers, marine and fish ecologists, environmental scientists and experts involved in the assessment of natural animal resources. The book has been developed as a result of studies carried out by a collaborative team of international researchers expert in this area with financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, AIR specific RTD programme. J. Rivoirard and N. Bez are at the Centre de Géostatistique de Fontainebleau, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France, J. Simmonds and P. Fernandes are at the FRS Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, UK and K. Foote is at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway and at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA.

In 1989 we were asked by Dr Vidar Wespestad (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. National Marine Fisheries Service. Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Seattle. USA) to prepare and convene a session at the 1992 World Fisheries Congress in Athens. Greece on computer appli cations in fisheries. We agreed that the idea was a good one and the computer session turned out to be very successful. The computer session was organized in three parts: training classes. informal demonstrations accompanied by posters. and oral presentations of scientific papers. We were both amazed by the high level of interest and the high quality of contributions presented at the paper session. Returning from the World Fisheries Congress. we suggested to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in Copenhagen to hold a theme session on the topic 'Computers in Fisheries Research' at their statutory meeting the fol lowing year in Dublin. Ireland. The proposal was very positively received by ICES and we began organizing this new meeting with Dr John Ramster of the Ministry of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food. Fisheries Laboratory. Lowestoft. England. Based on our experience with the World Fisheries Congress. we expected a maximum of 15 titles would be submitted to the ICES theme session. Accordingly. the ICES symposium was originally allo cated one half-day time slot. The response we received from the call for papers. however. exceeded our most optimistic expectations. A total of 62 abstracts were submitted. Consequently.

This publication of the NOAA Professional Paper NMFS Series is the product of a special symposium on "Emerging Technologies for Reef Fisheries Research and Management" held during the 56th annual Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute meeting in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, November 2003. The purpose of this collection is to highlight the diversity of questions and issues in reef fisheries management that are benefiting from applications of technology. Topics cover a wide variety of questions and issues from the study of individual behavior, distribution and abundance of groups and populations, and associations between habitats and fish and shellfish species.

The science of geostatistics is now being employed in an increasing number of disciplines in environmental sciences. This book surveys the latest applications of Geostatistics in a broad spectrum of fields including air quality, climatology, ecology, groundwater hydrology, surface hydrology, oceanography, soil contamination, epidemiology and health, natural hazards, and remote sensing.

This book covers the main mining issues where geostatistics, a discipline founded in the 1960s to study regionalized variables measured at a limited number of points in space, is expected to play a role. Each chapter of the book is associated with a stage of the mining sequence, including the interpretation and geological modeling of mineral deposits, evaluation of in-situ and recoverable resources, long-term mine planning, short-term planning and ore control, geotechnics, geometallurgy and sampling. This work, featuring more than 150 illustrations, avoids the traditional laborious and crippling theoretical treatment of geostatistics and is systematically oriented toward a practical exhibition of the problems and proposed solutions. The writing is fluid and intended to involve the reader. The book is the fruit of more than 35 cumulative years of applied research by the authors, a professor at the University of Chile and a researcher at Mines ParisTech, carried out in collaboration with the Chilean company Codelco since the late 1990s. Despite focusing on copper porphyry deposits, the generalization of the methods presented to the entire mining industry is straightforward. The broad range of problems addressed, including generally neglected disciplines such as geotechnics, geometallurgy and sampling, and their practical presentation make this book unique and usable by a very wide audience – students, researchers, geologists, engineers, geotechnicians and metallurgists.

The Second European Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Ap plications took place in Valencia, November 18-20, 1998. Two years have past from the first meeting in Lisbon and the geostatistical community has kept active in the environmental field. In these days of congress inflation, we feel that continuity can only be achieved by ensuring quality in the papers. For this reason, all papers in the book have been reviewed by, at least, two referees, and care has been taken to ensure that the reviewer comments have been incorporated in the final version of the manuscript. We are thankful to the members of the scientific committee for their timely review of the scripts. All in all, there are three keynote papers from experts in soil science, climatology and ecology and 43 contributed papers providing a good indication of the status of geostatistics as applied in the environ mental field all over the world. We feel now confident that the geoENV conference series, seeded around a coffee table almost six years ago, will march firmly into the next century.