Collaborative Research and Monitoring
The mission of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries is to serve as the trustee for the nation's system of marine protected areas, to conserve, protect, and enhance their biodiversity, ecological integrity and cultural legacy.
Through their collaborative research and monitoring programs, PISCO and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) achieve one of the major research goals stated in the National Marine Sanctuary Act (NMSA), “to coordinate research on, and long-term monitoring of, sanctuary resources and natural processes that occur in national marine sanctuaries”. PISCO is unique in conducting, large-scale, long-term monitoring studies of coastal oceans, over a range that encompasses all 5 west coast region National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS). PISCO and ONMS collaboration has served, over the past 10 years, to better characterize and understand the ecosystems and their related processes most utilized by people.
PISCO collaborates with ONMS research teams in each of the primary PISCO habitats, rocky shores, kelp forests and coastal oceans . In addition to this PISCO’s database management team have formed a data sharing partnership with ONMS staff. Their principal aim is to make data that is collected from the PISCO maintained, ONMS West Coast Observatory (WCOS) buoys available via the web in an Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) compatible format.