Deepwater Horizon - Baseline Dataset (NCEI Accession 0150631)

In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico and the Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) was initiated to determine the extent of damage to the resources and habitat of the area impacted by the spill. The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories has collected standardized data in the Gulf of Mexico since the 1980s through various fisheries resource surveys. These data were provided to the NRDA for inclusion as a baseline dataset on the health of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem prior to the oil spill.

To provide baseline resource survey data from the Gulf of Mexico to support the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resources Damage Assessment.

Cite as: Pollack, Adam (2016). Deepwater Horizon - baseline fisheries surveys conducted in the Gulf of Mexico from 1987-04-16 to 2010-08-01 (NCEI Accession 0150631). [indicate subset used]. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/0150631. Accessed [date]

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Validation routines are applied during data entry to ensure the integrity of data collected. Data validation routines are also applied as data are migrated into the centralized data management system.

Data resides in the laboratories’ centralized database (Oracle). Security patches are applied to the database and host environment immediately after their release. In addition, Security benchmarks are applied to the database and host environment.

Data residing in the centralized database (Oracle) is backed up nightly. Backup sets are placed on the laboratories’ Networked Attached Storage (NAS) environment. Security patches/updates are immediately applied to the host environment. Data is stripped/mirrored using RAID 50 technology to protect data from disk failure. Nightly backups are preformed and files are written to magnetic tape and stored in an onsite / offsite location.

As specimens are collected, total number of individual fish by species and lengths are taken and recorded into the shipboard data collections system. At the end of each survey data are reviewed for accuracy/relevance by chief scientists. Specimens that cannot be identified during the survey are identified in the laboratory.