The NEAMAP Operations Committee has recently generated a paper on The Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (NEAMAP) principles. This paper defines a “NEAMAP survey” for any survey that declares itself as “following NEAMAP protocols”. NEAMAP surveys are conducted by NEAMAP partners; they include both partner and Operations Committee designed surveys, and operate on local and regional spatial scales. NEAMAP surveys are designed to collect long-term fishery-independent data on species abundance, distributions, and life history, as well as related ecosystem and environmental information. NEAMAP surveys are reviewed and approved by the NEAMAP Operations Committee. NEAMAP data are collected to support fisheries management, as well as to enhance knowledge of marine fish and invertebrate stocks and the ecosystem.
