GOMA-CAT

This online Catalog has information about monitoring sites and management in coastal Alabama and Florida that are focused on conservation, protection, and restoration of terrestrial and aquatic habitats and the living creatures that make their homes there. By using the Catalog’s discovery tools, users can find out where projects are taking place, who (i.e., what organization) is doing the monitoring, what is being monitored, why monitoring is being performed, how to obtain the collected data, and who to contact for more information.

Although the project metadata (“data about data”) in the Catalog’s database is publicly accessible, it is primarily designed to serve the needs of environmental professionals affiliated with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA), a regional ocean partnership working to sustain the resources of the Gulf of Mexico. Coastal resource managers and researchers will be able to use the Catalog’s metadata to find project partners and relevant datasets as a means of furthering their management, restoration, and assessment efforts.

This Catalog was created to:

• Facilitate data sharing and collaboration among GOMA partner agencies;
• Assist GOMA Priority Issue Teams in meeting their goals, as set forth in the Governor’s Action Plan III for Healthy and Resilient Coasts (APIII);
• Promote the best use of information that already exists in distributed databases;
• Foster GOMA partnerships by encouraging the adoption of uniform data standards and formats;
• Enhance public education and awareness about historic and ongoing monitoring efforts by GOMA partners.

Metadata are contributed by individual organizations (local, state and federal environmental agencies, educational and research institutions, environmental consultants, testing laboratories, volunteer monitoring groups) that are performing the monitoring. Metadata are acquired directly from the organization performing the monitoring, or indirectly from publicly-accessible databases.

This Catalog currently has metadata only for coastal Alabama and Florida, but it is envisioned to eventually include projects from all five Gulf Coast states that are GOMA partners: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.