environmental & ecological services
Appropriate Assessment and Environmental Impact Statements
Marine Surveys
Terrestrial Surveys
Aquatic Surveys
Fisheries and Aquaculture
MERC
Marine
Ireland has a long and varied coast for a country of its size, with almost 60% of our total population residing in coastal areas. The coastal zone is...
MERC
Environmental & Ecological
MERC have been providing terrestrial surveys since their formation in 2004. Terrestrial surveys are generally conducted as a requirement under...
MERC
Renewables
Ireland is ideally placed to harness wind and wave energy, a source of the worlds greatest under utilised renewable energy. Renewable energy constitutes...
MERC Services
MERC Consultants offer a range of services related to the management and understanding of marine conservation. Click on any of the menu links on the left for more detailed description of our services.
Capacity and resources
  • MERC has an experienced HSE qualified commercial scientific dive team. Our commercial scientific dive team are highly experienced marine scientists with over 50 years of combined subtidal marine survey experience. Our dive team are fully compliant with HSA (Ireland) and HSE (UK) commercial diving regulations. All diving and marine survey operations are conducted from the companies fully licensed marine survey (S.I. No. 273/2002 — Merchant Shipping (Passenger Boat) Regulations 2002) vessel and operated by staff qualified under the S.I. No. 649/2005 — Merchant Shipping (Passenger Boat Manning) Regulations 2005. The company vessel carries both P3 and P6 licences.
  • Experienced and highly qualified scientific and technical staff
  • Experienced commercially licensed scientific diving team comprising professionally qualified commercial scientific divers. All divers are qualified to HSE Part IV or greater.
  • 'Valiant' - an 8-meter survey vessel with P3 and P6 passenger boat licence. This vessel is licensed to carry twelve persons. The vessel is fitted with Differential GPS units, a 200-horse power outboard motor, sin wave inverter, recording acoustic sounders and carries all necessary safety equipment. The vessel is capable of operating in extremely shallow waters, facilitating complete surveying of sea areas to the shore. This vessel is fitted with equipment to facilitate direct overboard seabed observation, drop down camera deployment and seabed sampling equipment.
  • Four small inflatable boats with a range of outboard engines suitable for the survey of sheltered freshwater habitats.
  • Subtidal survey and sampling equipment including state of the art drop down video system with GPS overlay and capable of operating in depths in excess of 150m, professional underwater digital video camera. Sony DSR PDX10 Video Recorder with Light and Motion Underwater 'Bluefin' Video housing complete with 2 x 50W professional video lights. Also available, back-up Panasonic NVS-39 digital video camera with Seapro housing and Ikelite 50W/100W professional underwater video light.
  • Professional Underwater NIKON digital SLR stills photography equipment in SEACAM housings. 2 units are available to facilitate simultaneous wide angle and macro photography.
  • All necessary diving equipment including diver propulsion vehicles (DPVs), scuba equipment, compressors, safety equipment including emergency oxygen and first-aid equipment.
  • Seabed sampling equipment including Day grabs, dredges, Livingstone corers and standard sampling equipment.
  • Microscopes, taxonomic keys etc.
Experienced HSE qualified commercial scientific dive team. Our commercial scientific dive team are highly experienced marine scientists with over 50 years of combined subtidal marine survey experience. Our dive team are fully compliant with HSA (Ireland) and HSE (UK) commercial diving regulations. All diving and marine survey operations are conducted from the companies fully licensed marine survey (S.I. No. 273/2002 — Merchant Shipping (Passenger Boat) Regulations 2002) vessel and operated by staff qualified under the S.I. No. 649/2005 — Merchant Shipping (Passenger Boat Manning) Regulations 2005. The company vessel carries both P3 and P6 licences.