SISP 15 - Manual of the IBTS North Eastern Atlantic Surveys

Abstract

The International Bottom Trawl Survey Working Group is an expert group under ICES with the responsibility of coordinating demersal fisheries surveys within large areas of the North Sea and NE Atlantic. The first survey to be annually coordinated was the International Young Fish Survey (IYFS), which was conducted in the North Sea and Skagerrak/Kattegat from 1966 onwards. A procedural manual was developed for use by scientists involved in this survey. In 1994, the IBTSWG assumed responsibility for coordinating Western and Southern division surveys, covering grounds from West of Scotland in the north, to the Gulf of Cádiz and Portugal in the south. Consequently, in 1995, the IBTS manual was revised for a fifth time in order to clarify certain aspects of surveys in the North Sea and Skagerrak/Kattegat and at the same time review the manual to establish whether the same IBTS procedures could be applied to Subareas 6, 7, and 8 and Division 9a. It was decided that some aspects of the manual applied equally to all areas but other proce- dures required dedicated text. These specific procedures were provided in Appendix IX of that document as a draft. At the 1999 IBTS Working Group meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, due to the considera- ble difficulties in merging the protocols used in the North Sea with those used in the Western and Southern divisions, it was decided that two manuals should be main- tained: one relating to the North Sea and the other to the Western and Southern IBTS areas (i.e. NE Atlantic). It was also decided that this latter document should be based on the manual produced in the SESITS project (Evaluation of demersal resources of Southwestern Europe from standardized groundfish surveys - Study contract 96-029), that in the present document is referred to as 1 st draft. At the 2002 IBTS Working Group meeting in Dublin, the Manual for the International Bottom Trawl Surveys in the Western and Southern Areas was adopted as Revision 2. Since then several further survey changes have been proposed and adopted within the area, including changes in survey designs, surveys being discontinued and ves- sels replaced. Therefore, at the 2017 IBTS meeting in Copenhagen it was decided to undertake a further third revision of the manual to be adopted before the 2018 IBTSWG meeting in Galway. Version 3 of the Manual for the Northeast Atlantic has been revised during these years, but further changes in design, vessels and surveys hampered issuing the new version. Following these delays, the IBTS 2017 meeting a final revision has been compiled to reflect both changes in Northeast Atlantic surveys and to tailor the manual to the format and requirements of the ICES Survey Protocols Series. Also it was decided to include as an annex (Annex 9) the draft of what would be the inclusion in the manual of the Irish Survey for Anglers and Megrim (IE-IAMS), that was been presented during the 2017 IBTSWG to be considered for the coordina- tion under the IBTS umbrella (ICES, 2017)