Biologists and administrators throughout Europe will soon be using a new shared database, developed by DTU Aqua, to process data from the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the North Atlantic.
The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has chosen to use the FishFrame database, which will contain huge volumes of data about fishery and the status of fish stocks that are collected every year by the European fishery research institutions.
The shared ICES database is to be named RDB-FishFrame and will assist ICES in planning and co-ordinating the monitoring of European fish stocks.
The system involving an inter-regional database has been in use in the international administration of the Baltic Sea since the mid-1990s and was extended to include data from the North Sea in 2005.
"When data are stored jointly, it is simple to collate information collected by different countries, make comparisons between locations and use one another's data to test hypotheses. In addition, if you have gaps in a specific time series, you can use data from other sources to plug it," explains Henrik Degel, special consultant at DTU Aqua.
Users can access FishFrame using a login from any browser, meaning that the database is readily accessible.
"Setting up the RDB-FishFrame database at ICES, where all data are available across national and regional borders, is crucial in assuring transparency in data collection and processing. It also ensures higher data quality and, in the long term, more economical data collection," explains Katja Ringdahl, president of the steering group for the coming RDB-FishFrame under ICES.
