<p>VIS - 'Specific Reference Freshwater Monitoring’ in Flanders, Belgium is a sample based dataset published by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). The original database is described in Brosens et al. 2015 (https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.475.8556). This dataset contains over 19,000 occurrences sampled between 2013 and 2023 from 45 locations per species in inland rivers, streams and canals in Flanders, Belgium. The dataset includes 4 target species (Cobitis taenia, Cottus perifretum, Lampetra planeri and Rhodeus amarus), as well as a number of non-target species. The data are retrieved from the Fish Information System (VIS), a database set up to monitor the status of fishes and their habitats in Flanders and are collected in support of the Water Framework Directive, the Habitat Directive, certain red lists, and biodiversity research. Additional information, such as measurements, absence information and abiotic data are available upon request. Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/inbo/data-publication/tree/master/datasets/vis-freshwater-monitoring-events</p><p>Length and weight measurement data of the individual fishes, absence information, occurrence data since 2013, as well as abiotic data of the sampling points (pH, temperature, etc.) are not included in the Darwin Core Archive and are available upon request.</p><p>To allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate however, if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use) and provide a link to the original dataset (https://doi.org/10.15468/klsy8u) whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to know how you have used or visualized the data, or to provide more information, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata, oscibio@inbo.be or https://twitter.com/oscibio.</p>