Initiating an Integrated Database Management for PaCOOS

Current Status of Accomplishment or Milestone: Proposal Completed and Funded.

Background: Central to the success of the Pacific Coastal Ocean Observing System (PaCOOS), and US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), will be a data and communications subsystem that addresses the wide variety and large volumes of data, issues of scientific integrity, operational delivery requirements, and the many requirements of users.  The Data Management and Communications (DMAC) subsystem must integrate data streams across disciplines, space/time scales, geographic areas, institutions, and users, and physically distinct data-storage locations and data storage platforms and formats. Accordingly, the computational, storage, and transport requirements for each participating lab must be identified.

Purpose of Activity/Goal of Project: Develop a proposal, in cooperation with the NWFSC, to support the planning and design of an integrated data management system for PaCOOS, and to begin this process by conducting pilot projects to demonstrate the integration of physical and biological data sets.

Description of Accomplishment and Significant Results: IOOS agreed to fund a joint West Coast effort for PaCOOS data integration and management. The project will begin some long-term planning and design for an integrated PaCOOS data management system, and conduct two pilot projects to demonstrate a system that integrates biological and physical data in FY2005. The SWFSC's pilot project will initially focus on integrating physical and biological data from CalCOFI surveys, but also identify relevant datasets to eventually be included, and identify people to take part in the metadata standardization effort. The longer-term goal involves identifying datasets at both Centers or partners that should be part of PaCOOS; coordinating efforts between the Centers and relevant partners to standardize quality control procedures and usage metadata fields; and begin efforts to integrate the datasets through Live Access Servers, scripts or similar things in the most used applications; and identifying the adequate infrastructure for the data system.

Significance of Accomplishment (e.g., to the Center, to Management, and to NMFS Strategic plan Goals): Identifying the west coast data needs, and beginning the development of an integrated data management system is an important early step in PaCOOS. This will ensure that physical and biological data from a wide variety of sources and PaCOOS partners will be available and easy to access for scientists and managers.

Problems: None.

Key Contact: Frank Schwing, (831-648-9034, Franklin.Schwing@noaa.gov).