Survey

The survey area covers the whole European Atlantic continental shelf; French, Spanish and UK offshore waters; and Norwegian coastal waters north to Vestfjorden. There are three survey ships. One will survey offshore waters west of Scotland and also in the northern Bay of Biscay from 27 June to 5 August. A second will survey the southern Bay of Biscay and offshore Spanish waters to the west from 3 to 29 July. The third will survey in the Skagerrak, Kattegat and Inner Danish waters from 4 to 24 July. Seven aircraft will survey continental shelf waters commencing on 27 June.

The Angeles Alvariño, which is surveying Spanish waters

A Partenavia P68, one of six such aircraft surveying shelf waters

A map of the survey area is shown below.  Numbered survey blocks are being covered by ships and lettered blocks by aircraft. Transect lines are have been designed to provide equal coverage probability within each survey block in software DISTANCE (Thomas et al. 2010).

Aerial and shipboard survey methods are described in Hammond et al. (2013).