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Part III. Appendix 4: User OutreachSUSTAINABLE USE OF MARINE RESOURCESTeam Member: Roy MendelssohnIntroductionThe Integrated Ocean Observing System is intended to enable the sustained use of marine resources.This sustained use of marine resources is a cross-cutting issue, as it depends on healthycoastal ecosystems, natural hazards and marine operations, and for proper long-term managementon the effects of climate change. The composition of this community of consumers includes, onthe research and management side, a variety of interests that are dominated by federal, state, andtribal government scientists and policy makers working in the management of fisheries. The fishingindustry itself, from fishermen through processors, includes both potential users of the data fromthe system, as well as groups that may be affected by the data needs of the system. Harbormasters,recreationalists, and educators also have interests in the sustained use of marine resources and arepotential consumers. Other highly visible potential IOOS user communities are composed of thescientists and agents of user groups representing commercial, recreational, subsistence, and nonconsumptiveinterests.Issues1. Data Formats. At present, OpeNDAP on the server side supports relatively few formats andsupports relatively few programs on the client side. The OBIS format is mainly used in museumsand universities. For this to become the standard “middle-layer” of the communication system,much more work would have to be done to be consistent with formats and programs used inboth state and federal government agencies concerned with sustained use. Many groups are nowapplying GIS-based systems, so easy ingestion of IOOS data into such systems would appear tobe a necessity.2. Data Entry Timing, and Quality Control. The currently applied model for data collectionappears to be based largely on systems of sensors, etc., where the data are readily availablein some electronic form immediately after collection. Much fisheries data are collected on paperforms, and there is often long lag times before the data are entered into an electronic format andsubjected to data quality assessment procedures. The design of the IOOS system will to take intoaccount some amount of time delay before certain types of data would become available. Qualitycontrol in general is more difficult with biological data—for example, sea surface temperaturedata exhibit a certain consistency in time, seasons, and space that allows possible outliers tobe flagged. Such “neighbor consistency” does not often for biological data, which make the prescriptionof quality-control indicators for biological data more difficult to define.249