Southern California Current waters have the reputation of being among the most well monitored stretch of ocean on earth. But just how well do we monitor the southern California Current Ecosystem? Until recently, no one created a comprehensive inventory of ocean monitoring programs off of California. However, a group of ten talented, recently graduated UCLA Environmental Science seniors worked with CalCOFI to create this inventory with a robust metadata attribute table and produce an extraordinary interactive GIS map of monitoring programs within 13.4 miles from the coast, including state waters (3 nautical miles of shore) plus an additional ten miles.

Southern California Current waters have the reputation of being among the most well monitored stretch of ocean on earth. But just how well do we monitor the southern California Current Ecosystem? Until recently, no one created a comprehensive inventory of ocean monitoring programs off of California. However, a group of ten talented, recently graduated UCLA Environmental Science seniors worked with CalCOFI to create this inventory with a robust metadata attribute table and produce an extraordinary interactive GIS map of monitoring programs within 13.4 miles from the coast, including state waters (3 nautical miles of shore) plus an additional ten miles.

This might come as a surprise, unless you’re plugged into ocean science lore: The oldest and longest-running marine ecosystem monitoring program in the world is based right off the coast of Southern California. Written by Rosanna Xia, LA Times

As the not so new director of the CalCOFI monitoring program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, I've been thinking a lot about what CalCOFI is today versus what it needs to become. As the oldest ocean monitoring program in the nation, we have a treasure trove of samples and data that goes back 77 years. We have prioritized improving data accessibility and integration of data sets so that researchers and resource managers can better use our data.