MEDITS 2016
| Type | Oceanographic cruise |
|---|---|
| Set | This cruise is part of the set MEDITS |
| Ship | L'Europe |
| Ship owner | Ifremer |
| Dates | 20/05/2016 - 25/06/2016 |
| Chief scientist(s) | JADAUD Angélique  , MELLON Capucine |
IFREMER STATION DE SETE Bd Jean Monnet BP 171 34203 SETE CEDEX +33(0)4 99 57 32 00 |
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| DOI | 10.17600/16011600 |
| Objective | Prior to 1993, several Mediterranean EU Member States had begun national programmes based on recurrent research cruises to assess the demersal resources exploited by their fleets. The MEDITS programme was launched in 1993 on the incentive of the European Commission (DG XIV), with the aim of perpetuating these programmes or promoting their extension to a set of countries, enabling standardization of the practical application and thus build a shared knowledge base on this subject. The programme's geographical coverage comprises all trawlable seafronts of 1 countries contributing to this cruise in the Mediterranean (Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Albania) and since 2009 in the Black Sea (Romania and Bulgaria). By standardizing observation methods, bottom trawling can be reproduced under similar conditions and thus allow the comparison of abundance indexes for different species between the different zones from one year to the next. Thus, standardized observation protocols, particularly focusing on the cruise period, location of sampling stations, characteristics and modes of use of the fishing gear, biological observations (weighing, counts, measurements, analysis of maturity, taking otolith samples), data file formats, etc., were jointly defined and are applied by all teams taking part in the programme. The States must ensure the collection of data and the management of these direct assessment cruises. For the French component, the trawled zones are East-Corsica and the Gulf of Lion. The data from each cruise have been and will be utilized to supply several indicators required by fisheries managements, for purposes of: (1) international expertise (direct and indirect stock assessments), abundance indexes used to calibrate some stock assessment models for the CGPM (General fisheries commission for the Mediterranean) or the STECF (Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries); (2) national expertise (responding to demands submitted by DPMA , scientific outreach to professionals); research (Amped, Perseus and other projects); Ecosystem-based approach to fisheries (supplying data to characterize spawning habitats and nurseries), MSFD (Marine Strategy Framework Directive) hydrology (CTD and WP2), gelatinous species and macrowaste or marine litter. MEDITS falls under Ifremer's "SIH ressources" (fisheries information system) programme within the Data Collection Framework (DCF) context. |
