fishr

An R package for downloading, cleaning, and visualising FAO global capture fisheries data.

Installation

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("https://github.com/clarajegousse/fishR/fishr")

Overview

fishr wraps the FAO Global Capture Production dataset with a small set of functions to get you from raw data to analysis-ready tibbles and plots with minimal friction.

Function	What it does
download_fao_capture()	Downloads and extracts the FAO capture ZIP to a local cache
load_fao_capture()	Reads and joins quantity, country, species, and area tables
clean_country_names()	Replaces verbose FAO country names with short/common equivalents
plot_top_species_country()	Bar chart of top n species for a country in a given year
plot_species_trend()	Time series of catch for one or more species in a country
plot_species_country_comparison()	Compare catch of one species across countries (snapshot or trend)
plot_decadal_average()	Bar chart of average annual catch per decade for a species in a country
plot_species_global_catch()	Stacked area chart of global catch with top n countries highlighted

Usage

Download and load data

library(fishR)

# Downloads to a user cache directory; skips if already present
data_dir <- download_fao_capture()

## Data already available at: /Users/clara/Library/Application Support/org.R-project.R/R/fishr/Capture_2025.1.0

# Returns a joined tibble ready for analysis
data <- load_fao_capture(path = data_dir)

# Optionally add short/common country names
data <- clean_country_names(data)

Top species in a country (single year)

plot_top_species_country(
  data    = data,
  country = "Iceland",
  year    = 2023,
  n       = 10
)

Catch trend over time (single species)

plot_species_trend(
  data    = data,
  country = "Iceland",
  species = "Atlantic cod"
)

Catch trend — multiple species, overlapping lines

plot_species_trend(
  data    = data,
  country = "Iceland",
  species = c("Atlantic cod", "Capelin", "Atlantic herring"),
  facet   = FALSE
)

## Warning in ggplot2::geom_line(colour = if (!multi || facet) colour else NULL, : Ignoring empty
## aesthetic: `colour`.

## Warning in ggplot2::geom_point(colour = if (!multi || facet) colour else NULL, : Ignoring empty
## aesthetic: `colour`.

Catch trend — multiple species, faceted panels

Useful when species have very different catch magnitudes.

plot_species_trend(
  data    = data,
  country = "Iceland",
  species = c("Atlantic cod", "Capelin", "Atlantic herring"),
  facet   = TRUE
)

Compare catch across countries

# Bar chart — top 10 countries for a species in a single year
plot_species_country_comparison(
  data    = data,
  species = "Atlantic cod",
  year    = 2023
)

# Bar chart — specific countries only
plot_species_country_comparison(
  data      = data,
  species   = "Atlantic cod",
  countries = c("Iceland", "Norway", "Canada"),
  year      = 2023
)

# Time series — top 5 countries, overlapping lines
plot_species_country_comparison(
  data    = data,
  species = "Atlantic cod",
  n       = 5
)

# Time series — specific countries, faceted panels
plot_species_country_comparison(
  data      = data,
  species   = "Atlantic cod",
  countries = c("Iceland", "Norway", "Canada"),
  facet     = TRUE
)

Decadal average catch

Useful for identifying long-term structural shifts in catch levels.

plot_decadal_average(
  data    = data,
  country = "Iceland",
  species = "Atlantic cod"
)

Global catch with top countries highlighted

Shows total global catch over time for a species, with the top n countries in distinct colours and all remaining countries aggregated as “Rest of the World” in grey. Useful for reading both overall trends and shifts in country-level contributions simultaneously.

plot_species_global_catch(
  data    = data,
  species = "Skipjack tuna",
  n       = 5
)

Data source

FAO ({{year}}). Global Capture Production. Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. Available at: https://www.fao.org/fishery/en/collection/capture

Status

Early development — functions and data structure may change between versions.