AcousMed is the abbreviation of a DG MARE contract tender on the “Harmonization of the acoustic data in the Mediterranean 2002-2006”.The project aimed to assure the optimization of the design of these acoustic surveys held in the five different geographical areas (i.e. Spanish Mediterranean waters, Gulf of Lions, western Adriatic Sea, Strait of Sicily and North Aegean Sea), promote the compatibility of the acoustic estimations among these areas as well as the compatibility of old and new acoustic data within each area. One of the main tasks of the current study included the revision of existing survey designs along with an estimation of the precision of each survey.
Abundance data of historic acoustic surveys (2002-2006) concerning anchovy and sardine populations in each study area were analyzed and geostatistical analysis was applied in order to estimate survey accuracy (i.e. variance) and examine alternative survey designs. In addition, within the scope of this study was the harmonization and the optimization of the acoustic methodology used in each survey.
This covers three major issues i.e. (a) the Target Strength equation used for the target species in each area, (b) the effect of the time of day on the acoustic and biological sampling as well as (c) the standardization of a common format for acoustic data and the estimated parameters that would allow a comparable presentation of the data for the requirement of the DCR as well as their integration for common analysis.
IMBRIW’s researcher Dr Marianna Giannoulaki was the scientific coordinator of the project and partners involved were the following Institutes: HCMR-IMBRIW, IEO (Spain), IFREMER (France), CNR-Ancona (Italy), CNR-Sicily (Italy)