144th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society

August 17 - 21, 2014

Many agencies and organizations conduct fisheries and aquatic ecology surveys that result in a wealth of data needed by research and management communities. These data could significantly advance the goals of national and regional scale initiatives if information was more readily exchanged.   Improving data exchange between the United States and our international neighbors would also improve our ability to manage fisheries resources along US borders and advance collaboration between fisheries and aquatic professionals throughout North America.  Efforts to justify the need for a fisheries data exchange standard have been made in the past, but the proposed solutions to derive and implement a standard have not been universally endorsed.  We have brought together aquatic biological data specialists to investigate and develop phase one of a national fisheries data exchange standard.  This collaboration included a preliminary review of methods and protocols currently employed by fisheries data and information managers; the identification of desirable measurements, metrics and indicators; the study of existing data warehouse schema; and the development of options for moving forward with a national scale data exchange initiative. Results of this work provide a foundation for developing a national data exchange standard that could lead to more effective management of our fisheries and aquatic resources.  This session will present the work of the data specialists over the last year and provide an opportunity for the AFS community to engage in the review process of the initial phase of the fisheries data exchange standard.