English Channel Beam Trawl Survey: Catch and Environmental Data

The Southern North Sea and Eastern English Channel are the focus of this annual fisheries survey. It provides station, catch, length, and biological data for all species, alongside benthic, litter, water temperature, salinity, and acoustic measurements. The data supports EU regulations and ICES research programs, collected using a 4m beam trawl from the CEFAS Endeavour research vessel.

Use Cases

• Assessing fish stock health and population dynamics based on species catch and length data.
• Monitoring marine litter pollution in the English Channel and North Sea.
• Studying benthic community composition and its relationship to trawl activity.
• Analyzing correlations between water temperature/salinity and species presence.
• Supporting acoustic data analysis for habitat mapping or fish school detection.

Strengths

• Covers a wide taxonomic range, with one survey catching 199 different species.
• Collects multi-faceted data, integrating biological catch with environmental (temperature, salinity) and benthic measurements.
• Operations were conducted at a high number of stations, with one survey covering 119 stations.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts: sources disagree on the survey date (July-August 2011 vs. 2012) and total species count (180 vs. 199).
• Column names, data size, row count, license, and author information are completely unknown across all platforms.
• Documentation is sparse, lacking details on specific biological parameters measured and data structure.

Provenance

Source

Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas)

Collection Method

Collected during the English Channel Beam Trawl Survey using a 4m beam trawl and Niskin Bottle with MiniCTD from the RV CEFAS Endeavour.

Time Range

July-August 2011 or July-August 2012 (conflict between sources).

Freshness

Last updated metadata on one platform was 2026-06-11, but the underlying survey data is from 2011 or 2012.

Geography

Southern North Sea and Eastern English Channel (ICES areas VIId and IVc).