standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

3.2. Taxonomic standardization
I strongly recommend a centralized approach to taxonomic
identification, in which a particular taxonomist or museum is made
responsible for identifying material from all claim areas. This is essential to
developing consistency among contractors in species-level identification
and for establishing the geographic ranges of important (e.g., indicator)
species.
One approach would be for each contractor to contribute about
50,000 United States dollars per year during the four years of baseline
monitoring to a central taxonomic facility centred at a museum (e.g., the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, or the Natural History Museum,
London). With five contractors, an annual budget of some $US250,000 per
year would be allocated, which should be adequate to establish a broadbased
taxonomic centre addressing taxonomy from meiofaunal nematodes
to megafaunal holothurians. Contractors would then send sorted sample
material to the taxonomy centre for identification, establishment of species
ranges and species descriptions. Principal taxonomists (e.g., for
polychaetes, isopods, nematodes, etc.) would establish priorities for
identifying the most relevant samples in order to efficiently resolve patterns
of local species diversity and biogeographic patterns. The taxonomy centre
would also be responsible for mustering taxonomic expertise to handle
baseline material by recruiting and training graduate students and
postdoctoral scholars, including scientists from the countries of contractors.
Ultimately, such a taxonomy centre could provide the multiple services of
consistent taxonomic identification, description of key species, resolution of
biogeographic patterns and training of an international cadre of young
taxonomists (of whom there is a great shortage worldwide).
3.3. Requirements of an environmental database
The requirements of an environmental database require some
discussion because several factors must be considered in its design. These
include the following:
i. The nature of existing data to be entered. Substantial amounts
of environmental physical, chemical and biological data have
already been collected in the areas currently of interest for
exploration contracts. These data have been collected
according to a variety of standards. Nonetheless, they may be
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