BALANCE Cruise report: The Kattegat, 18/7 – 18/8 and 21/11 – 23/11 2006

This cruise report presents a short concise description of the habitat mapping activities conducted by the National Environmental Research Institute (NERI) in Kattegat in May, June and august 2006 and by The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) in November 2006. The activities are part of the BSR INTERREG IIIB project “BALANCE”. The area of activity in Kattegat is part of the BALANCE pilot area 1.

Four separate cruises have been performed.

The first cruise with R/S ‘Gunnar Thorson’ was carried out in conjunction with the national (Danish) soft bottom benthic monitoring cruise in May 2006. The sampling in pilot area 1 was completed during a very intense period over 24 hours.

The second cruise took place at the end of June 2006 with R/S ‘Havternen’ focussing on hard bottom habitats. Furthermore, some hours was spend in August 2006 in conjunction with the national reef monitoring cruise with R/S ‘Havternen’ exploring sea grass beds south of the island of Læsø. Finally a cruise was conducted by GEUS in November 2006 using R/S ‘Føniks Miljø’ for acquiring acoustic data within the area surveyed by NERI in May and June.