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.

Data is freely available through the EurOBIS Data Portal and the EMODnet Biology Data Portal.
The links to the online data can be found on the metadata pages of each dataset.