The primary aim of the Fisheries and Resources Monitoring System (FIRMS) is to provide access to a wide range of high-quality information on the global monitoring and management of fishery marine resources. FIRMS draws together a unified partnership of international organizations, regional fishery bodies and, in the future, national scientific institutes, collaborating within formal agreement to report and share information on fisheries resources. For effective fisheries information management, FIRMS also participates in the development and promotion of agreed standards. FIRMS system is part of the Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS). Information provided by the partners is organized in a database and published in the form of fact sheets. This system provides the data owner with tools to ensure controlled dissemination of high quality and updated information.

ICES hosts data collected from both net trawl surveys (primarily bottom trawling), and from echo sounding (acoustic sampling in the pelagic zone). The net trawls are primarily hosted in the DATRAS data portal, and the acoustics in the acoustic trawl surveys portal. DATRAS (the Database of Trawl Surveys) stores data collected primarily from bottom trawl fish surveys coordinated by ICES expert groups. The survey data are covering the Baltic Sea, Skagerrak, Kattegat, North Sea, English Channel, Celtic Sea, Irish Sea, Bay of Biscay and the eastern Atlantic from the Shetlands to Gibraltar. At present, there are more than 45 years of continuous time series data in DATRAS, and survey data are continuously updated by national institutions. The acoustic database hosts information on fisheries observations collected from various pelagic surveys coordinated by ICES and falls into two categories: acoustic data, derived from readings taken on vessels, and those obtained through trawls in the open ocean – pelagic – zone. Combined, this provides key biological data on fish stocks such as herring, mackerel and blue whiting as well as krill and other prey species. The data from both systems are used for stock assessments and fish community studies by the ICES community and form the basis of management advice to the relevant regulatory bodies.