22/02817 - Voluntary ex-ante transparency notice - participation in the monitoring programme for escaped farmed salmon part I.

Description

Monitoring of escaped farmed salmon in the river systems is combined in a national monitoring programme, led and coordinated by the Institute of Marine Research. The goal for the programme is to coordinate and quality assure the entire process from planning and collection of data about the occurrence of escaped salmon in the river systems, to reporting of the results of the surveys. The reporting must, as far as possible, describe the number and proportion of escaped farmed salmon in individual river systems and how these are distributed in the river system. Furthermore, possible regional differences must be highlighted, and the reporting must be suitable for answering important administrative questions. Lot 1: In order to implement the Monitoring Programme with sufficient coverage in river systems in all regions in Norway, the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research wants to enter into a contract with suppliers of suitable data sets that can contribute to describing the situation with regard to occurrence and quantity of escaped farmed salmon. The contracts include participation in analysis of data sets, reporting and further development of the programme. Experience and scientific publication, within relevant disciplines for the Monitoring Programme is crucial for the selection of supplier, as well as what data the individual actors have available. The Norwegian Research Centre AS (NORCE) carries out drift counts in a large number of river systems, mainly in western Norway, but also in river systems in other parts of the country. NORCE delivered data from drift counts in 52 river systems in 2019. The number of river systems will vary from year to year, but 2019 gives a clear indication of the scope of the data collection. NORCE has been a major part of the development of the methodology for drift counts, and has also published several scientific articles on this field. NORCE has experienced staff with expertise in drift counts from different types of river systems. The Institute of Marine Research has cooperated with NORCE on the verification of the methodology for drift counts. NORCE actively participates in the development of the monitoring programme, analyses of data, and report writing.