2016 USA–Norway EK80 Workshop Report: Evaluation of a wideband echosounder for fisheries and marine ecosystem science

For more than a decade, the Simrad–Kongsberg (Simrad) EK60 echosounder has been a worldwide standard for providing estimates of fish biomass and distributions, conducting ecosystem surveys, and observing the behaviours of aquatic organisms and their associations with oceanographic and seabed environments. However, components of EK60 general purpose transceivers (GPTs) are no longer commercially available, the GPT-control and data acquisition software, ER60, is no longer developed, and both have been recently superseded by the more advanced Simrad EK80 echosounder system. To facilitate a rapid and successful transition to the operational use of EK80, it is necessary to ensure the continuation of accurate and precise measurements used in time-series for stock assessments and marine ecosystem research.