Virtual Access to
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)
Country
Denmark
Liaison officer
Neil Holdsworth
Expertise
Contact
Aquaculture, Data, Environment, Fisheries
Services offered
ICES has a vision to be a world leading scientific organization concerning marine ecosystems and to provide the knowledge to secure the sustainable use of the seas. Its Mission is to advance the scientific understanding of marine ecosystems, and provide information, knowledge, and advice on the sustainable management of human activities affecting, and affected by, marine ecosystems. ICES coordinates and promotes marine research on oceanography, the marine environment, the marine ecosystem, and on living marine resources in the North Atlantic. Members of the ICES community now include all coastal states bordering the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea, with affiliate members in the Mediterranean Sea and southern hemisphere. ICES maintains some of the world’s largest databases on marine fisheries, oceanography, and the marine environment, and its Data Centre is part of a global network of distributed data centres.
ICES offers virtual access to the databases lodged in its Data Centre:
Eggs and larvae - The Eggs and Larvae Web Services provide the ability to search and retrieve data from Eggs and Larvae Data website by providing access to the data. The Eggs and larvae portal hosts data from ichthyoplankton surveys carried out in ICES areas. Fish egg and fish larvae data have been collected in the ICES area for a long time for use in stock assessments and fisheries management. The collection of the data is usually organized by international survey expert groups. The Eggs and Larvae database aims to store, and make available, data collected by ichthyoplankton surveys for use by ICES and the wider marine community. It provides an overview of available fish egg and larvae survey data, and a unified portal for access to the ichthyoplankton survey data. (Eggs and larvae: +40 users/month)
Trawl Survey Data - DATRAS Web Services offer a possibility to search and retrieve data from DATRAS database by granting direct access to the data. DATRAS (the Database of Trawl Surveys) has been developed to collate and document the survey data, assure data quality, standardize data formats and calculations, and ease data handling and availability. With the possibility for instant remote access, the data from DATRAS are used for stock assessments and fish community studies by the ICES community and public users. DATRAS stores data collected primarily from bottom trawl fish surveys coordinated by ICES expert groups. The survey data are covering the Baltic Sea, Skagerrak, Kattegat, North Sea, English Channel, Celtic Sea, Irish Sea, Bay of Biscay and the eastern Atlantic from the Shetlands to Gibraltar. At present, there are more than 45 years of continuous time series data in DATRAS, and survey data are continuously updated by national institutions. (DATRAS: 200 users/month)
Acoustic Trawl Survey - Acoustic Portal has webservices for both uploading and downloading acoustic data. Uploading is used only internally within the Acoustic Portal, while downloading is available for external use. Processed Acoustic and Biotic collected on acoustic trawl surveys in the Northeast Atlantic and Baltic seas The database hosts information on fisheries observations collected from various pelagic surveys coordinated by ICES and falls into two categories: acoustic data, derived from readings taken on vessels, and those obtained through trawls in the open ocean – pelagic – zone. Combined, this provides key biological data on fish stocks such as herring, mackerel and blue whiting as well as krill and other prey species. (Acoustic Trawl survey: +50 users/month)
Stock Information Database (SID) - Meta-information about every stock that ICES provides management advice for. ICES Stock Information Database holds annual information for all ICES stocks, including: what model was used; advice validity period; when the precautionary buffer was last applied.
Stock assessment graphs (SAG) - The ICES ecosystem advice is based on assessment results that are presented in stock assessment standard graphs and data tables. Data and plots are available in ICES Stock Assessment Database. The ICES Stock Assessment Database data are available for the analytically assessed ICES stocks from 2014 onwards. Plots and data from previous assessments will be made available when the data and settings have been quality controlled. (SAG: 250 users/month)
DOME services - The Dome Web Services provide the ability to search and retrieve data from Dome website by providing access to the data. Each part of the web services is provided by a web service API, which defines the name, input to, and output from the service for a particular data request. The page lists all the DOME Web Service APIs with a description that includes the information provided by the API, the input needed to get data from the API, and the data that is returned by the API. ICES also provides a Web Service Description Language (WSDL) document that fully describes the DOME Web Service. (DOME: 100 users/year)
Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems - Portal to view and download observations of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VME) indicators and habitats in the North Atlantic. The Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VME) Webservice provides the ability to display VME data contained within the ICES VME Data Portal database on your Geographical Information System (GIS) using Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) standard protocols. A central portal for data on the distribution and abundance of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs), (and organisms considered to be indicators of VMEs) across the North Atlantic has been set up by the Joint ICES/NAFO Working Group on Deep-water Ecology (WGDEC). Criteria used to select habitats and indicators for inclusion in the database were those described in the FAO International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-sea Fisheries in the High Seas (FAO, 2009). The VME database may be used for many purposes. ICES uses it when providing scientifically robust advice on the distribution of VMEs and recommending possible management solutions such as bottom fishing closures within North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) waters to protect VMEs.
Vocabulary Service - The ICES Vocabulary Server is the reference codes library for ICES dataset collections and includes externally referenced controlled lists used by ICES. Here you can find all the codes, references and linkages that appear in data and data services managed by ICES.