CIRO 2/79: North Sea Groundfish Survey Catch and Biological Data

Cefas conducted the CIRO 2/79 survey as part of the North Sea Groundfish Survey in February 1979. The dataset includes station, catch, length, and biological data for 47 species caught at 120 stations, alongside benthic, temperature, salinity, and litter data. It was collected using GOV and ISAAC-KIDD trawls from the research vessel Cirolana to support EU regulations and the International Bottom Trawl Survey.

Use Cases

• Modeling species distribution and abundance based on catch data from 120 stations.
• Analyzing fish population biology and growth based on length and biological data for selected species.
• Studying benthic ecosystem interactions using collected benthic data.
• Investigating environmental correlations using concurrent water temperature and salinity measurements.
• Assessing marine litter pollution levels from the litter data collected during the survey.

Strengths

• Data collection followed standardized International Bottom Trawl Survey (IBTS) protocols using specified trawl gear.
• Survey operations covered 120 stations, providing spatial breadth for the North Sea area.
• Records include data for 47 different species caught, indicating biodiversity coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Cefas (Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science), part of the UK Government Digital Service.

Collection Method

Collected using research vessel Cirolana with Frame Trawl ISAAC-KIDD and Otter Trawl GOV gear at sea stations.

Time Range

01/02/1979 to 23/02/1979

Freshness

Data is from a specific survey in February 1979; historical dataset.

Geography

North Sea