TISBE was developed to serve as a species register for the Belgian Coast and adjacent areas (including the Scheldt Estuary). It contains detailed taxonomic information, and information on the distribution within the area of interest. An effort will be made to minimize duplication of other initiatives, both those within the VLIZ (e.g. the North Sea Benthos Survey project in collaboration with ICES), and those from other institutions (e.g. the databases developed at the University of Gent and the Dutch Centre for Estuarine and Coastal Ecology; the European Register of Marine Species, the Biodiversity Database and CD ROM series of ETI). The TISBE database is integrated in the other databases of VLIZ: literature, databases, experts and institutions will be taken from the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS). The objective of TISBE is to become a comprehensive list of all records of species from the area. Links with the taxonomic literature and to the original publication of the distribution record will assist in tracing the history of records. By providing a synonymised list of species records, TISBE will be a tool to assess marine biodiversity and to monitor the species composition of the ecological communities along the Belgian coast.