A major constraint to science-based fish stock management in West Africa is the lack of reliable data on target stocks. This especially holds true for inland fisheries, such as those that operate in reservoirs. Due to the low availability of resources and population data, and the limited number of fisheries experts in the region, state institutions and investigators rely heavily on simple catch statistics and empirical models for their estimations of fish production and potential yields. This paper reviews data from the FAO, and published articles and reports on West African reservoirs, with special reference to their morphometric and environmental features in relation to fish catch. In addition, we analyse primary data on three focus reservoirs. First, to improve and update available models of potential harvests from reservoirs, we regress fish catch data against reservoir surface area data for 30 reservoirs in West Africa, yielding the following equation: Catch (tonnes/year) = 17.3 × Area (km²)^0.8626. The equation accounts for 95.7% of the variation observed in the fish catches. Analysis of covariance of small (<2 km²) and large (>2 km²) reservoirs shows no significant difference (F = 0.5895, p = 0.45) in the slopes of the two groups. Second, we apply multiple regressions to a sub dataset of 15 reservoirs with surface area and mean depth as predictors; and we also explore reservoir age as a further variable. We find that fisheries productivity is inversely correlated with both mean depth (r = -0.49) and surface area (r = -0.32), but there is no significant correlation found with reservoir age (r = 0.03).

西非以科学为基础的鱼类资源管理的主要制约因素是缺乏有关目标种群的可靠数据。对于内陆渔业尤其如此，例如在水库中作业的内陆渔业。由于资源和人口数据的可用性低，并且该地区的渔业专家数量有限，国家机构和调查人员在估计鱼类产量和潜在产量时严重依赖简单的产量统计和经验模型。本文回顾了粮农组织的数据，并发表了有关西非水库的文章和报告，并特别提及了它们与鱼类捕捞有关的形态和环境特征。此外，我们分析了三个重点油藏的主要数据。首先，要改善和更新来自水库的潜在收获的可用模型，²）^0.8626。该公式占鱼获量变化的95.7％。小型（<2 km ²）和大型（> 2 km ²）储层的协方差分析显示 两组坡度无显着差异（F  = 0.5895，p = 0.45）。其次，我们对15个储层的子集应用多元回归，以表面积和平均深度作为预测因子。并且我们还探讨了水库年龄作为进一步的变量。我们发现，渔业生产力与平均深度（r  = -0.49）和表面积（r  = -0.32）均成反比，但与水库年龄（r  = 0.03）没有显着相关性。