The ICES Study Group on the North Sea Benthos Project 2000 (an offshoot of the ICES Benthos Ecology Working Group) is integrating recent macrobenthic infaunal data (1999-2001) available from various sources, including national monitoring surveys, in North Sea soft bottom sediments. The main goal is an overall comparison with the ICES North Sea Benthos Survey data of 1986, in order to determine whether there have been any significant changes and, if so, what may be the causal influences (e.g., climate change, fishing impacts). The work will contribute valuable information on several other topics such as habitat classification and the distribution of sensitive and opportunistic species.

Access to distribution data is restricted, will be made available as soon as the results of the analyses are published (see access to data for details). For the time being only physico-chemical data on the stations, and the combined list of species is made available.