Infaunal SACFOR abundance data from underwater video footage from selected Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), Northern Ireland, 2017

This series contains information on the SACFOR abundance of benthic infauna species from video footage from selected Special Areas of Conservation (SAC’s) in Northern Irish waters. The selected SAC’s have previous multibeam data available for each site, therefore this project was to provide ground-truthing evidence for these habitats. The surveys took place from 2017-09-25 to 2017-09-27 on board the RV Corystes and the selected SAC’s are as follows; Red Bay SAC, The Maidens SAC and Skerries and Causeway SAC. Both a towed sledge camera and a drop frame camera were used in these surveys. The video sledge was attached by a 400m cable with a USBL system, scaling lasers and an ancillary GoPro. A 0.1m2 day grab was also used as further ground-truthing but this information is not included in this dataset. Particle size analysis and Carbon and Nitrogen analysis were also carried out (not included in this dataset). Information on the substrate was collected and is included in this dataset. In total there were 13 successful sledge camera tows and 7 successful drop frame camera tows.