Water Framework Directives marine benthic ecological quality analysis

Tender description

A requirement of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is that benthic macro-invertebrates must be sampled from coastal and transitional waters at least twice within a river basin cycle (6 years) in order to classify these water bodies. The WFD requires the sampling of all nominated coastal and transitional waters for benthic macro-invertebrates. This includes the field sampling, processing and analysis of samples. The Marine Institute a semi State body, working in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government, wishes to invite tenders for the outsourcing of the processing and analysis only of benthic macro-invertebrates and sediment samples. At present a requirement exists for the analysis of in-faunal sediment samples collected from a range of seabed locations around Ireland. It is intended that the successful company will extract the taxa from the sediment residue and identify them to species level, assign a WoRMS AphiaID to each and enumerate each per sample.