a. Data Release Philosophy
Information management has been an important component of previous Bight surveys and has been instrumental in the successful analysis and assessment of environmental conditions in southern California. An area of concern with any collaborative project involving large numbers of participants is not only the timing of data release, but to which groups it is made available. The data release for Bight’08 will follow those used for previous Bight surveys and is based on a chronologically tiered system. The chronological steps with tiers include:
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Collection Agency: This agency can use any data collected by themselves or their contractors at any time at their own discretion.
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Information Management Officer (IMO): All organizations will submit their data to the IMO in accordance with the Bight’08 Information Management Plan. Upon receiving the data, the IMO will conduct detailed QA/QC procedures to check for regional data consistency. Once the data has passed these tests, the IMO will release the data to the appropriate Technical Committee Chair for further review.
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Technical Committees: The Technical Committee Chair will be provided data of the type for which they are responsible (i.e., chemistry or infauna or trawl or toxicity, etc.) immediately following certification by the IMO that the data is complete. The Technical Committee Chair may release this data to members of their committee to assist with scientific review and data analysis for their respective element of the Bight’08 program. The regional data set shall not be distributed outside of the Technical Committee until a data review has been completed.
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Other Technical Committees: Other Technical Committees will have access to the Bight’08 regional data once the primary Technical Committee Chair has conducted the scientific review for data analysis following approval by the Planning and/or Steering Committee. Any special requests for early data release to other Technical Committees or nonparticipants must go through the Steering Committee for approval.
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Nonparticipants: Data will be released to nonparticipants once the Technical Committees have produced a final report that has been approved by the Planning and/or Steering Committee.
Once the Steering Committee has approved the Technical Committee Final Report the IMO will compile the regional data with necessary supporting documentation (i.e. metadata and Final Report) with access through the SCCWRP web site (www.sccwrp.org/data). Individual data tables, collections of data, and maps of the data can be downloaded or printed from the SCCWRP website.
b. Metadata
Each release of Bight’08 data to the public will include comprehensive documentation of the data sets. Referred to as metadata, this documentation will include database table structures (including table relationships) and lookup tables used to populate the fields in each table. It will also include quality assurance classifications of the data and documentation of the methodologies by which the data were collected.
A second type of metadata will document changes made to the data over time. As the data are used, we anticipate that errors will be found. As changes to the data are made, they will be documented in a file organized by date and data table. Including this file with each data download will allow users to reconcile potential differences in analysis output that result from using different versions of the data.
Metadata will follow guidelines from the Federal Geographic Data Committee, Content standard for digital geospatial metadata, version 2.0. FGDC-STD-001-1998 (FGDC 1998), including the Biological Data Profile and the Biological Names and Taxonomy Data Standards developed by the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII 1999).
V. DATA TABLES
Two tables are held in common for each of the data components that will be collected for Bight’08. The first table is the Stations table, which includes information on each station, such as general location, inclusion probabilities and area weights. This table is necessary to complete data analysis using the stratified, random sampling process. Descriptions of the sample draw can be found in the Bight’08 Coastal Ecology Workplan. This table is filled in by the IMO and will not be considered complete until all sampling for a given survey component has been completed. This is necessary for computing area weights, as these values are computed based on the number of successful samples taken.
The second table is the Station Occupation table which includes information on the conditions and Sample Type (i.e. Grab, Trawl or Dive) taken at each station. This table links to the Stations table by the field StationID. This table includes whether a station was successfully sampled or abandoned due to some unforeseen reason.
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tblStations
PURPOSE: The file will be generated by SCCWRP. Each record represents a description of a geographical location including label, latitude, longitude, statistical subpopulation, inclusion probability and statistical weight of the station. This table may be appended as stations are added from the overdraw pool to replace abandoned stations.
TABLE GUIDELINES: Each record will be unique based on StationID.
tblStations
Name
|
Type
|
Required
|
Size
|
Description
|
StationID
|
Text
|
Y
|
25
|
A geographic location label
|
SurveyID
|
Text
|
Y
|
25
|
The survey the station originated from
|
Location
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
The general location of the station
|
Stratum
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
The parent sub-population to which the station belongs
|
Latitude
|
Decimal
|
Y
|
|
The latitude of the station expressed in decimal degrees to five decimal places.
|
Longitude
|
Decimal
|
Y
|
|
The longitude of the station expressed as a negative number in decimal degrees to five decimal places.
|
Ports
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
A code for the ports. Z for not a member of stratum
|
BaysHarbors
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
A code for the bay or harbor station. Z for not a member of the stratum.
|
Marinas
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
A code for the marina station. Z for not a member of the stratum
|
Bath6to30
|
Yes/No
|
Y
|
1
|
The station belongs to the 6 to 30 meters stratum
|
Bath30to120
|
Yes/No
|
Y
|
1
|
The station belongs to the 30 to 120 meters stratum
|
Bath120to200
|
Yes/No
|
Y
|
1
|
The station belongs to the 120 to 200 meters stratum
|
Bath200to500
|
Yes/No
|
Y
|
1
|
The station belongs to the 200 to 500 meters stratum
|
Bath500to1000
|
Yes/No
|
Y
|
1
|
The station belongs to the 500 to 1000 meters stratum
|
Estuaries
|
Text
|
Y
|
35
|
A code for all Non-Los Angeles County estuaries. Z for not a member of the stratum.
|
USGS
|
Text
|
Y
|
35
|
A code describing USGS sampling areas. Z for not a member of the stratum
|
SPME
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
A code for areas sampled by Solid Phase Microwave Extraction. Z for not a member of the stratum.
|
ChannelIslands
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
A code for all Channel Islands stations. Z for not a member of the stratum.
|
InclusionProbility
|
Decimal
|
Y
|
|
Inclusion Probability
|
AreaWeight
|
Decimal
|
Y
|
|
Area Weight
|
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tblStationOccupation
PURPOSE: The purpose of the Station Occupation table is to document the conditions under which each sample was collected. This table is used for sediment grab, trawl assemblage, and dive sampling regimes. Each record contains a characterization of the station at the time of sampling in terms of the weather, sea state, sample type, vessel name, agency, and quality of the GPS signal at the time of sampling.
TABLE GUIDELINES:
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Each record will be unique based on a combination of StationID, SampleDate, ArrivalTime, SamplingOrganization, and SampleType.
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This file can be named at the discretion of the user; however the excel sheet tab must be named tblStationOccupation for submission to the Bight’08 online system.
EXAMPLE DATA:
Table Structure:
tblStationOccupation
Field Name
|
Type
|
Required
|
Size
|
Description
|
StationID
|
Text
|
Y
|
25
|
A geographic location label from the station table. From tblStations.
|
SampleDate
|
Date/Time
|
Y
|
|
The date the of the station visit expressed as dd-mmm-yyyy.
|
ArrivalTime
|
Date/Time
|
Y
|
|
The time of arrival on station expressed in 24 hour time hh:mm
|
ArrivalTimeZone
|
Text
|
Y
|
10
|
The time zone of the arrival time. From luList42_TimeZoneCodes.
|
SamplingOrganization
|
Text
|
Y
|
15
|
An agency code from luList01_AgencyCodes.
|
SampleType
|
Text
|
Y
|
25
|
From luList04_SampleTypes
|
Vessel
|
Text
|
Y
|
50
|
The name of the vessel.
|
NavType
|
Text
|
Y
|
10
|
DGPS for differential / GPS for non-differential From luList20_NavigationalInstruments. Default = “DGPS”
|
Salinity
|
Decimal
|
*
|
|
The salinity of the station expressed in PSU. This is used for estuary samples only.
|
SalinityUnits
|
Text
|
*
|
15
|
Required if Salinity present. From luList28_Units. Default = “PSU”.
|
WeatherCode
|
Text
|
Y
|
35
|
Predetermined weather codes from luList08_WeatherCodes. Default = “Clear”
|
WindSpeed
|
Integer
|
Y
|
|
Speed in knots.
|
WindSpeedUnits
|
Text
|
Y
|
15
|
From luList28_Units. Default value is KTS.
|
WindDirection
|
Text
|
Y
|
10
|
N,NE,E,SE,S,SW,W,NW, (XX for calm) (NR for not recorded) From luList05_OrdinalDirections. Default = “XX”
|
SwellHeight
|
Decimal
|
Y
|
|
The estimated height of the swell.
|
SwellHeightUnits
|
Text
|
Y
|
15
|
From luList28_Units.
|
SwellPeriod
|
Integer
|
Y
|
|
The estimated swell period in seconds.
|
SwellDirection
|
Text
|
Y
|
10
|
N,NE,E,SE,S,SW,W,NW, (XX for calm) (NR for not recorded) From luList05_OrdinalDirections.
|
SeaState
|
Text
|
Y
|
25
|
Calm, rough, choppy, or confused from luList16_SeaState.
|
StationFailCode
|
Text
|
Y
|
25
|
From luList40_EventFailureCodes. Default value = “None”
|
Abandoned
|
Yes/No
|
Y
|
|
Was the station abandoned? Default is no, but a yes requires a comment.
|
Comments
|
Text
|
*
|
100
|
Additional comments. * required if Abandoned = “Yes”.
|
|