Multidisciplinary integrated surveys: Objectives, achievements and future directions

Over the last two decades, fisheries surveys have shifted their focus, from providers of data for single fish stock assessments to become platforms for the multidisciplinary integrated monitoring of ecosystems (including the continued provision of the data necessary for assessing fish stocks). Such change in focus was possible in part because new research vessels built in the 1990s were sufficiently large and equipped for multidisciplinary teams to work simultaneously onboard. The shift in survey objectives, and the data provided, supported changes in policies for implementing ecosystem based approaches. In many countries around the Atlantic, sectoral fisheries management is now embedded into ecosystem conservation and environmental legislation. Similarly, integrated maritime policies now require collecting data on major ecosystem components to monitor the achievement of good environmental status. Presently, fisheries surveys undertaken yearly over large marine areas have become the multidisciplinary platforms providing the required data