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:
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.
The catalog is being developed with the guidance of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Data & Monitoring Priority IssueTeam. Metadata Collection is being performed by the Geological Survey of Alabama, with advice and assistance from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
Funding for the Gulf of Mexico Monitoring & Metadata Catalog is provided by a 2017 Gulf Star Award. Gulf Star is a public-private partnership administered by the Gulf of Mexico Alliance and is a 501(c)3 public charity with flexibility to collaborate with others in the Gulf region.