Reports on the results of the ICES coordinated monitoring programme, 1980 and 1981

This report gives the results for the samples taken in 1980 in connection with the ICES Coordinated Monitoring Programme. This is the seventh year of the programme, under which member countries of ICES submit the results of their analyses for certain contaminants in samples of fish and shellfish collected annually from a number of specified areas in the North Atlantic. The programme began in 1974 as a follow-up to the 1972 baseline survey of the concentrations of contaminants in fish and shellfish of the North Sea (results published in Coop. Res. Rep. No. 39 (1974), which showed that certain areas, particularly t he coastal areas around the North Sea and the Southern and German Bights, were more contaminated than elsewhere in the North Sea. It was agreed that the results of national monitoring studies conducted in the identified areas should be submitted to ICES for inclusion in an annual report . In 1974 and 1975, only the above-mentioned areas were covered by the programme. However, in 1976 t he geographical range was extended

following the 1975 baseline survey of contaminant levels in fish and shellfish of the North Atlantic . The areas studied included the North Sea, the Irish Sea, certain coastal areas in the Northeast Atlantic including off the coast of Iceland, and several areas in the Northwest Atlantic off the coasts of Greenland and Canada. Later, areas were included off the coast of Portugal and t he northeast coast of the United States. The results of these studies are published in Coop. Res. Rep. Nos. 69 (1977) and 95 ( 1980).