Marine Water Quality and Biological Monitoring Data

ODES stores water quality and biological data from marine, estuarine, and freshwater environments. The system contains records on fish abundance, bioaccumulation, benthic infauna, and sediment characteristics for regulatory programs. Data is managed by the SCIOPS organization, with a documented last update in July 1991.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in water quality variables across different monitoring programs.
• Examine spatial relationships between sediment physical/chemical characteristics and benthic infauna abundance.
• Assess bioaccumulation levels in fish for regulatory compliance under the Ocean Disposal Program.
• Correlate fish histopathology data with specific pollutant discharge data from the 301(h) Sewage Discharge Program.
• Use stored quality assurance reports to validate analytical methods for bioassay data sets.

Strengths

• Data spans multiple major regulatory programs including the National Estuary Program and the Great Lakes National Program Office.
• Each data set includes a quality assurance report describing analytical methods and procedures.
• Supports examination of both spatial and temporal relationships among variables.

Limitations

• Data appears temporally stale, with a last documented update in 1991.
• Specific row counts, column details, and sample sizes are not provided in the description.

Provenance

Source

nasa_earthdata

Collection Method

Collected from marine monitoring programs including the National Estuary Program and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program.

Freshness

1991-07-01

Geography

Marine, estuarine, and freshwater environments in the United States, including the Great Lakes.