InterCatch is a web-based system, to which fish stock coordinators and national data submitters from the North East Atlantic can have access. In InterCatch national institutes can upload national fish catches per area per time period per fleet etc. The data can be checked at any level. Fish stock coordinators can allocate sampled catch data to unsampled catches and aggregate all catch data. The aggregated output files can then be downloaded to the stock coordinators workstation. The files will be used as input for the stock assessment models.

InterCatch is developed to ease data handling, standardise procedures and calculations, remove errors and document the national data and process done at ICES level. The data in InterCatch are used as a basis for advice to the European Commission, NASCO and NEAFC. InterCatch is part of the ICES quality assurance program.

ACOM have in the Generic Terms of Reference for Regional and Species Working Groups stated that InterCatch should be used for all stocks.  Under b) Update and quality check relevant data for the working group: Under i )     Load fisheries data on effort and catches (landings, discards, bycatch, including estimates of misreporting when appropriate)
in the INTERCATCH database by fisheries/fleets;
The ToRs apply to: AFWG, HAWG, NWWG, NIPAG, WGWIDE, WGBAST, WGBFAS, WGNSSK, WGCSE, WGDEEP, WGHMM and WGANSA.

If you are a stock coordinator or national data submitters, who needs to access InterCatch or have questions regarding the import, please contact Data Officer Anna Osypchuk. If you have other questions please contact Project Manager Henrik Kjems-Nielsen.

Go to InterCatch here

Manuals

The use of InterCatch is described in:
InterCatch User Manual (InterCatch User Manual Doc1-6.pdf)

Catch data must be uploaded in text files in the InterCatch format:
InterCatch Exchange manual (IC-ExchFormat-Ver1-0 Doc1-4. pdf)

The InterCatch format in a two page overview here.

Check lists

Check list for data submitters (Check list DS ver 1.4)

Check list for stock coordinators (Check list SC ver 1.4)

Generic SQL Query Template and InterCatch Codes

The Generic SQL Query Template can be adapted to national institutes databases to extract catch data in the InterCatch format (Generic SQL Query Template)

InterCatch codes for use in SQL queries or conversion programs (Table of InterCatch codes.mdb)

Program to convert to InterCatch file format

Andrew Campbell from Marine Institute, Galway, Ireland, has developed a program which automatically converts catch data from the ‘Data Submission Workbook’ spreadsheet (aka ‘exchange format spreadsheet’) into the InterCatch format.

InterCatchFilemaker conversion program and the exchange format spreadsheet (InterCatchFilemaker.zip)

Unzip all the files, read the documentation ‘InterCatch Input File Generator.doc’ and install the InterCatchFileMaker program by pressing ‘setup.exe’. Many thanks to Andrew, he will be maintaining this program and receive feedback by email.

ICES
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info@ices.dk