6.3 Technology transforms
Since monitoring began in 1966, the technology available for data collection has inevitably been transformed, with environmental sensors becoming more accurate, reliable and inexpensive. Likewise, fisheries assessment tools, such as electrofishing and tagging have improved, leading to the need to compare methods and re-construct comparable time series. Fortunately, statistical and modelling tools for data evaluation are also continuously improving in the era of “big data” and often these can be used in model-data fusion to enhance the maximum information content extractable from data, as well as quantify uncertainties associated with historic time series.