Marine Environment Monitoring and Assessment National database (MERMAN)
BODC's role
UK coastline - Chapman's Pool
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As the UK's national marine data centre, BODC has experience with managing access to data from large national and international multidisciplinary projects. As such we were involved in agreeing the guidelines for access to MERMAN.
BODC also coordinated with IBM, during the latter stages of MERMAN’s development, to ensure the structure and implementation satisfied the requirements of the Clean Seas Environmental Monitoring Programme (CSEMP).
BODC acts as the Data Manager for MERMAN. Our duties include
- Ensuring the annual transfer of data to the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES). These data are included in Oslo and Paris Convention (OSPAR) assessments to fulfil the UK’s contribution to OSPAR.
- Providing a helpdesk service for all users of MERMAN.
- Providing support to the Competent Monitoring Authorities (CMAs) when making a submission into MERMAN.
- Data submission is carefully controlled to ensure mistakes are not transferred into MERMAN. BODC liaises with the designated Responsible Officer from each CMA to clarify any queries with the data. Data are only loaded once they have passed the MERMAN data rules. CMAs must submit data annually by 01 June in the year following the monitoring activity.
- Handling data requests from CMAs, private organisations and members of the public. All data are provided free of charge, under licence agreement.
- Liaising with IBM to maintain the database and make changes and improvements as specified by CSSEG.
- Ensuring the transfer of legacy CSEMP data from the pre-existing databases into MERMAN to allow the most complete dataset to be available for national assessments.
- Ensuring that MERMAN is fully integrated and complementary to national and international data initiatives including the Marine Data and Information Partnership (MDIP), Marine Environmental Data Action Group (MEDAG), ICES, SeaDataNet, International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) among others.
Related BODC pages
| Project overview | Other links | |
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