Every year, Wageningen Marine Research carries out shellfish surveys in the Dutch coastal waters (Wadden Sea, Oosterschelde, Westerschelde and Coastal Zone), investigating the distribution and size of the most important commercial shellfish species. These are mainly mussels, cockles, knife hives and Japanese oysters, but also other species with a certain importance for ecology or fishing are included. In addition, catch data from professional fishing are also collected. The data is used by the government when deciding whether or not to permit fishing.

In 2006, the first Dutch offshore wind farm was built 10-19 km from the shore of Egmond aan Zee. A monitoring and evalulation program accompanied the plans for the construction and exploitation of this farm. This dataset focusses on the monitoring and evaluation of potential ecological consequences in the Dutch coastal zone related to this farm for the fish community. Monitoring was executed prior to the construction of the farm (2003/2004), one year after (2007/2008) and five years after (2011). Surveys were preformed with beam trawls, pelagic nets and gillnets to study both benthic and pelagic fish communities. The monitoring is directed and the dataset is maintained by Wagening Marine Research, previously IMARES, located at Wageningen, the Netherlands. Publication of the dataset has been facilitated by Deltares, The Netherlands.