Facilities support for the CARICOMP network of cooperating Caribbean marine laboratories

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Dr. John Ogden is Director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography, and currently serves as co-chair of the Steering Committee of the Caribbean Coastal Marine Productivity Program (CARICOMP), a consortium of more than 30 marine labs located in more than 20 Caribbean countries. The consortium was established in 1985 and has received NSF and UNESCO support for workshops that initiated planning for a basin-wide information network dedicated to collecting and maintaining standardized long-term environmental (oceanographic, meteorologic, and ecosystem) observations. A Data Management Center will be established with UNESCO support at the University of the West Indies, Kingston, to operate the network. Dr. Ogden proposes initiation of the data network by installing personal computers, submersible water quality data loggers, remote automated weather stations, and networking hardware and software at five representative marine labs, located in Venezuela, the Yucatan Peninsula, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and Barbados. The CARICOMP network will facilitate pure and applied research into the tropical ecosystems of the coastal zone (reefs, mangrove wetlands, seagrass meadows). The proposed effort will provide important benefits to research on global change and the impacts of society and economic development on tropical coastal zones.