OBIS is a global open-access data and information clearing-house on marine biodiversity for science, conservation and sustainable development. VISION: To be the most comprehensive gateway to the world’s ocean biodiversity and biogeographic data and information required to address pressing coastal and world ocean concerns. MISSION: To build and maintain a global alliance that collaborates with scientific communities to facilitate free and open access to, and application of, biodiversity and biogeographic data and information on marine life. More than 20 OBIS nodes around the world connect 500 institutions from 56 countries. Collectively, they have provided over 45 million observations of nearly 120 000 marine species, from Bacteria to Whales, from the surface to 10 900 meters depth, and from the Tropics to the Poles. The datasets are integrated so you can search and map them all seamlessly by species name, higher taxonomic level, geographic area, depth, time and environmental parameters. OBIS emanates from the Census of Marine Life (2000-2010) and was adopted as a project under IOC-UNESCO’s International Oceanographic Data and Information (IODE) programme in 2009. Objectives - Provide world’s largest scientific knowledge base on the diversity, distribution and abundance of all marine organisms in an integrated and standardized format (as a contribution to Aichi biodiversity target 19) - Facilitate the integration of biogeographic information with physical and chemical environmental data, to facilitate climate change studies - Contribute to a concerted global approach to marine biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring, through guidelines on standards and best practices, including globally agreed Essential Ocean Variables, observing plans, and indicators in collaboration with other IOC programs - Support the assessment of the state of marine biological diversity to better inform policymakers, and respond to the needs of regional and global processes such as the UN World Ocean Assessment (WOA) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - Provide data, information and tools to support the identification of biologically important marine and coastal habitats for the development of marine spatial plans and other area-based management plans (e.g. for the identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant marine Areas (EBSAs) under the Convention on Biological Diversity. - Increase the institutional and professional capacity in marine biodiversity and ecosystem data collection, management, analysis and reporting tools, as part of IOC’s Ocean Teacher Global Academy (OTGA) - Provide information and guidance on the use of biodiversity data for education and research and provide state of the art services to society including decision-makers - Provide a global platform for international collaboration between national and regional marine biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring programmes, enhancing Member States and global contributions to inter alia, the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS)

The ODIS "Catalogue of Sources" aims to be an online browsable and searchable catalogue of existing ocean related web-based sources/systems of data and information as well as products and services. It will also provide information on products and visualize the landscape (entities and their connections) of ocean data and information sources. It will contribute to the objectives of the Agenda 2030, and in particular the UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The Catalogue is not an ocean database or metadata repository. The catalogue includes descriptive information such as the URL, title, description, language, point of contact, geographic scope, available technologies for machine-to-machine interaction, keywords, etc. and can be searched on many of these fields. The IODE network of NODCs has been collecting, managing and serving data for decades. This effort has yielded an extensive, but distributed and heterogeneous collection of data and information sources. Additionally, the low threshold for technical capabilities required to offer data and information over the Internet means that many of the hosted resources are not readily discoverable through NODCs, regional or international data and information systems ODIS will provide an online catalogue of (ideally) all online data/information sources (and, where possible, metadata on off-line sources as well). Many regional and international programmes and projects have developed online data/information services but there is currently no "one-stop shop" where users are offered an overview and/or common data/information discovery interface. There are currently 3090 sources (2172 are searchable) catalogued in the system.

The Western Channel Observatory (WCO) is an oceanographic time-series and marine biodiversity reference site in the Western English Channel. In situ measurements are undertaken weekly at coastal station L4 and fortnightly at open shelf station E1 using the research vessels of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association. These measurements are complemented by PML's recognised excellence in ecosystem modelling and satellite remote sensing science. By integrating these different observational disciplines we can begin to disentangle the complexity of the marine ecosystem. The WCO measures several key parameters important to the functioning of the marine ecosystem such as light, temperature, salinity and nutrients. Station L4 has some of the longest time-series in the world for zooplankton and phytoplankton, and fish trawls have been made by the MBA for a century. Station E1 has a hydrographic series dating from 1903. These long series are complemented by hourly measurements made at our moorings situated at both stations. These can elucidate changes not captured by the routine weekly sampling.

Explore global fisheries and aquaculture. Understand their status and how impacts are being managed. Learn what improvements are underway, and see what actions seafood stakeholders can take to drive sustainability. FishSource is a publicly available online resource about the status of fisheries, fish stocks, and aquaculture. FishSource compiles and summarizes publicly available scientific and technical information and presents it in an easily interpretable form. FishSource was created in 2007 by Sustainable Fisheries Partnership to provide major seafood buyers with up-to-date, impartial, and actionable information on the sustainability of fisheries and the improvements they need to make to become more sustainable. In 2018, information on aquaculture sources was added to the database to provide FishSource users with a more robust tool that covers all types of seafood production. Although the primary intended audience of FishSource is seafood businesses, other audiences - such as academics, researchers, and non-profit organizations - have also become frequent and welcomed users of FishSource. The information on FishSource is primarily developed and updated by a small team of in-house analysts, but their capacity is recognizably insufficient to maintain complete coverage of all global fisheries. As such, profiles may be incomplete or information may be out of date. The seafood industry and external contributors are invited to help fill any gaps that they consider priorities through our Rapid Assessment Program. FishSource always welcome comments on any of our profiles and encourage an open debate on the sources of information used and our interpretation of the data. Our objective is to use only publicly available sources and fully credit those sources, effectively acting as an inventory of information sources on fisheries and aquaculture.

The primary aim of the Fisheries and Resources Monitoring System (FIRMS) is to provide access to a wide range of high-quality information on the global monitoring and management of fishery marine resources. FIRMS draws together a unified partnership of international organizations, regional fishery bodies and, in the future, national scientific institutes, collaborating within formal agreement to report and share information on fisheries resources. For effective fisheries information management, FIRMS also participates in the development and promotion of agreed standards. FIRMS system is part of the Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS). Information provided by the partners is organized in a database and published in the form of fact sheets. This system provides the data owner with tools to ensure controlled dissemination of high quality and updated information.

NCAR was established by the National Science Foundation in 1960 to provide the university community with world-class facilities and services that were beyond the reach of any individual institution. More than a half-century later, we are still delivering on that mission. NCAR provides the atmospheric and related Earth system science community with state-of-the-art resources, including supercomputers, research aircraft, sophisticated computer models, and extensive data sets. From its founding, NCAR was meant to provide the atmospheric research community with the shared resources necessary to work on the most important scientific problems of the day. Not much has changed. The hundreds of scientists who work here research all things atmospheric — which includes everything from the microphysics of cloud formation and the chemistry of air pollution to large-scale planetary waves and the impact of increased greenhouse gases on our climate. Since the atmosphere interacts with everything it touches, its crucial to investigate those interactions, too.

The GRSF, the Global Record of Stocks and Fisheries, integrates data from three authoritative sources: FIRMS (Fisheries and Resources Monitoring System), RAM (RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database) and FishSource (Program of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership). The GRSF content disseminated through this catalogue is distributed to test the logic to generate unique identifiers and review collated stock and fishery data. This beta release can contain errors and we welcome feedback on content and software performance, as well as the overall usability. Beta users are advised to use caution and to not rely in any way on the application and/or trust content and accompanying materials. What is the GRSF? A comprehensive and transparent inventory of stocks and fisheries records across multiple data providers.

The Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN) is a partnership of UK organisations committed to improving access to UK marine data. MEDIN is open to all with an interest in marine data and information. We are sponsored by a consortium of 15 sponsors and partnered with over 50 organisations. MEDIN Sponsors include a range of UK marine organisations who support MEDIN’s principles and lead the UK in marine data management. To officially join the network and become a MEDIN Sponsor, please email MEDIN stating your interest at enquiries@medin.org.uk. Our partners represent government departments and agencies, research organisations and private companies and have committed to practise good data management to help future-proof and secure UK’s valuable marine data. MEDIN reports to the Marine Science Coordination Committee. The MEDIN portal contains information about 15,000 marine datasets. The United Kingdom Directory of Marine Observing Systems (UKDMOS), is a unique internet-based searchable database of marine monitoring conducted by UK organisations. Aiming to fulfil the basic requirement to know where, when and what is being monitored in the marine environment around the UK and provide information to help coordinate monitoring across different organisations, UKDMOS is a tool for searching monitoring programmes and series based on information such as the parameters measured or the frequency of measurements taken. UKDMOS is managed and updated by the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN).

The Ocean Action Hub is an open, interactive website providing information and promoting action globally to support the implementation of SDG 14: Life below Water before 2030. The Hub was initiated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with the Governments of Sweden and Fiji, to facilitate multistakeholder engagement as part of the Ocean Conference process. The Hub hosted online discussions on ocean issues as an input into the development of the 1st Ocean Conference "Call for Action" in 2017, and facilitated co-development of solutions and voluntary commitments by multi-stakeholders, as well as providing a space for connecting and sharing ideas. In the run-up to the 2nd Ocean Conference the Hub continues to be maintained as a central source for information on implementation of SDG 14. The ocean plays a key role in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The ocean covers nearly three quarters of the Earth’s surface and contributes substantially to human development, including to the provision of food security, transport, energy supply, tourism and many of the planet’s most critical ecosystem services (carbon and nutrient cycling, climate regulation, oxygen production). The market value of marine and coastal resources and industries is approximately USD 3 trillion per year, or 5 percent of global GDP. Yet, today it is estimated that 40 per cent of our oceans are heavily affected by unsustainable practices, including over-fishing, land-based sources of pollution, habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change, particularly ocean acidification. SDG 14: Life below Water aims to address these threats.

EMODnet (European Marine Observation and Data Network) is the long term marine data initiative supported by the European Commission since 2009 to ensure that European marine data will become easily accessible, interoperable, and free on restrictions on use. EMODnet Chemistry provides access to standardized, harmonized and validated chemical data collections for water quality evaluation at a regional scale, as defined by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The data portal has adopted and adapted SeaDataNet standards and services, establishing interoperability between the data sets from the many different providers (more than 60 in EMODnet Chemistry network). Concentration maps of nutrients, chlorophyll-a and dissolved oxygen are computed on a standard grid, providing information at a regular time interval, per season and over several vertical layers, including the deepest one. Dedicated OGC standard services for browsing, viewing and downloading chemistry observation, data and data products for the European waters have been developed, and are actively maintained and monitored.