There is a basic requirement to know where, when and what is being monitored by the UK in the marine environment. Currently this information on monitoring programmes is not held or accessible from a central point. The UK Directory of Marine Observing Systems (UKDMOS) is a new project to overcome this current lack of information which will run until February 2008 as a special project under the Marine Environmental Data Action Group (MEDAG).

The application will build on the existing European Directory of Ocean Observing Systems (http://www.edios.org/) which is undergoing substantial development and refinement under the EU funded SeaDataNet project (http://www.seadatanet.org/). Providing the technological solutions in collaboration with the SeaDataNet project will lead to substantial cost saving to the overall UKDMOS project and ensure that UKDMOS is compatible with other ongoing national and international metadata initiatives. In particular, compatibility with the MDIP metadata schema will be ensured so that in future the metadata may be viewed via the MDIP portal if required.

Monitoring programmes included in the metadatabase will be searchable in a GIS format to the level of individual sampling sites and the metadata will be available to be downloaded via the web as shown below from the EDIOS website.

It is intended that the application will be of use to a wide variety of needs including European Global Ocean Observing System (EuroGOOS), Environmental Research Funders Forum (ERFF), Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and in particular provide a tool to assist the coordination of UK monitoring programmes for the UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy. The metadata in UKDMOS would also be available to be viewed in EDIOS allowing an overview of the coordination of UK monitoring efforts with European partners.  

Please contact mecha@bodc.ac.uk for further details.