Correlation of temperature, salinity, and water depth to the demersal fish density in Natuna Sea

A sustainable demersal resources management and utilization policy in Natuna Sea should be based on stock assessment results as its scientific evidence. The research aimed to analyse the demersal stock density, and its relationship with environmental aspects. The research result showed that the distribution of demersal fish found was between 40 and 60 m below surface water in Anambas Island, Tambelan Island, Subi Island and Midai Island. The stock density of demersal fish was estimated between 68.9 kg km^-2 to 5,685.9 kg km^-2 with an average estimated around 1.070,86 kg km^-2 and the total biomass of demersal fish was estimated around 188,765.14 tons. The impact of environmental conditions such as temperature, salinity and water depth in Natuna Sea gives very low contribution to the distribution and density of demersal fish stocks, whereas the most influent component is salinity (r=0.114).