MERMAid

Data and information about the coastal environment is more diverse and is distributed among a larger number of sources than traditional oceanographic data. This fact makes a single physical repository for all coastal data impractical. NOAA created the National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC) to provide access to this diverse and distributed data.

NCDDC seeks to provide access to this diverse and distributed data by using standard metadata as an effective means of discovery and delivery. In addition, federal laws and policies governing NCDDC mandate the use of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata standards.

A growing number of coastal data providers, who have not traditionally thought of their data as "geographic," have come to realize the value of formal metadata processes during the past decade. These data providers have acknowledged that the FGDC metadata clearinghouse and the Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) are viable manners in which to provide a wide distribution of information about their data. Comprehensive, high-quality tools became a limiting factor in the production, maintenance, and publication of metadata for coastal data.

NCDDC supports ecosystem stewardship by providing access to the nation's coastal data resources. NCDDC achieves this capability through the integration of diverse coastal data distributed in multiple repositories and provides these data to users via the Internet using established and emerging technologies. NCDDC maintains a searchable metadata catalog of coastal data to help accomplish this goal of coastal data access. NCDDC developed the Metadata Enterprise Resource Management Aid (MERMAid) tool as a mechanism for its data partners to generate, to validate, manage, and publish their metadata.

MERMAid has many features and supports a variety of formats. For a complete list of features and supported formats, click here. NCDDC works closely with its data providers to customize the creation and management process, publication, and to facilitate the archive process for any metadata on a per project basis based on the needs of the data provider and the data.