Sampling of fish and crustaceans at the cooling water intake of an estuarine power plant: a comparison with stow net fishery

Fish and crustaceans were sampled in November 1995 in the cooling water int ake of the nuclear power plant Doel (Zeeschelde Estuary, Belgium) and by st ow nets, to determine possible differences in species abundance, species bi omass, and mean species length between the two methods. A total of 39 speci es were caught, 32 by stow net and 33 at the intake, with 26 species being caught by both methods. The abundance and biomass were several times higher at the intake than in the stow net samples. Although the average length wa s higher in the stow net samples in the case of most species, almost all le ngth classes of each population were also present in the samples from the c ooling water intake. The results suggest that the cooling water intake is a n effective means to collect fish and crustaceans, and reflects the species abundance in the surrounding waters, if the method is combined with survey s to separate local events from long-term trends.