S9.2.8 - Environmental status support to North Sea fisheries assessment

The objective of the work package “Environmental Status Support to North Sea Fisheries Assessment” is to provide information about the state of the North Sea from dynamical models output and from direct observations to assist decision making in the fisheries sector. The DESS web portal presents a subset of the environmental assessments made in the document-based North Sea Pilot Project (NORSEPP) reports (an ICES and EuroGOOS project). Key advantages of this service are:

• A more frequent update (the target is for a monthly update).
• An interactive display – for example displaying areas and times selected by the user
• Flexible display of other relevant information – for example time series of fisheries information.

The products displayed are mainly based on the Met Office Medium-Resolution Continental Shelf (MRCS) model. Information about MRCS can be found at http://www.ncof.co.uk/Coastal-Seas-Modelling.html

web page

User requirements were captured for S9.2.2 Ecosystem Health in the North Sea and S9.2.8 Environmental Status Support to North Sea Fisheries Assessment, from interviews conducted with users and experts. A single requirements capture exercise covered both applications, since the users were able to offer expertise on both and the main input dataset (UK Met Office physical-ecosystem shelf seas model) is the same. The differences in requirement between the two systems are reflected in the two web portals.

• Temperature, salinity and chlorophyll most important, followed by algal occurences.
• Waves, wind and currents also useful for fisheries.

• Maps of surface and bottom fields and anomalies, and surface-bottom difference as a familiar proxy for stratification.

• Time series.

• Daily for ecosystem health, past data plus five day forecast where available.
• Monthly means for fisheries.

• Whole MRCS domain fine for Ecosystem Health – DESS provides full flexibility for region and zoom
• Subregions useful for fisheries - ICES regions are a good choice.

• 6km model resolution adequate for open water applications but may be insufficient for very-near-coast applications.

The pre-existing service for this application is a demonstration paper-based amalgamation of material from a wide and disparate range of contributors, prepared by the ICES-EuroGOOS Planning Group for a North Sea Pilot Project. For more information on NORSEPP, go to the ICES NORSEPP page.