The Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean Ecosystems

Key tasks

• Environmental and resource monitoring and management advice for fish stocks
• Management plan for the Barents Sea
• Cooperation with Russia regarding shared resources and responsibilities
• Environmental monitoring, including contaminants and radioactivity
• Contribute to the development of ecosystem-based management
• Seabed and benthic habitat mapping
• Research dissemination and implementation of results

Programme activities:

• The Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean Programme (BHAV) is a monitoring and advisory programme that conducts extensive survey and data collection across the entire ice-free Barents Sea. Major recurring surveys:
• The annual autumn ecosystem survey, covering all ecosystem components from plankton to whales, with emphasis on capelin.
• The annual winter survey focusing on fish species, particularly commercial species such as cod and haddock.
• The annual cod spawning survey (tracking cod on their spawning migration toward the coast).
• The annual snow crab survey in a defined fishing area in the central Barents Sea.
• Fixed oceanographic transects carried out several times a year to monitor environmental conditions and plankton).

BHAV also manages the Norwegian reference fleet (fishing boats that report catches and provide catch samples), collects landing samples along the coast, and compiles data from the Coast Guard and the Directorate of Fisheries. Together these activities provide the data needed for stock and ecosystem assessments in the Barents Sea.

Beyond surveys, BHAV process diet data from demersal fish, performs age reading of otoliths with quality assurance, and maintains time series essential for modern stock assessments. Norwegian and Russian researchers collaborate on data coordination and quality assurance for assessments of shared stocks and integrated ecosystem assessments (IEA) in the Barents Sea.

The data is used in various stock assessment projects, the largest of which covers all the major commercial demersal fish stocks in the Barents Sea. In addition, there are projects dealing with stocks such as capelin, scallops and snow crab, as well as genetic analyses for population structure and reliable species identification.

BHAV also has extensive activities within fisheries technology, both in relation to snow crab (cf. ghost fishing), trawling and purse seining (selection and catch control) in cod and haddock fisheries.

Major external research projects at BHAV largely address ongoing climate change and its effects, invasive species and increasing human impacts in the region.

Advice to the Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission

Stock assessment of harvestable stocks, forecasts for stock development, evaluation of fisheries management harvesting rules, improvement of methodology, long-term yield estimates, incorporation of ecosystem parameters in stock assessment, quality assurance, sampling of catches, etc.

Advice to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries and the steering group in connection with the Barents Sea Management Plan

Monitoring environmental parameters and development og ecosystem indicators on ocean climate, primary and secondary productivity, populations, species and biodiversity, assessing ecosystem state and development, cumulative anthropogen impacts, and updates on Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (SVOs).

Leadership of the Monitoring group and participation in the Management group the two advisory groups for the cross sector plans (for the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea).

The monitoring and assessment results are made operational in a short annual report (1 March) to the interdepartmental steering group and in extensive assessments every forth year that form the basis for revisions and development of the cross sector management plans, presented as Government’s White Paper.