Integrated Marine Environmental Samples and Readings

The IMERS database was set up at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in response to the growing need of a general repository that could store the data resulting from sampling campaigns in a uniform way. The database has been designed for storing measurement data based on sampling of water, sediment, suspended matter and biota. The measurement data, the so-called readings, are stored together with a maximum of information on the actual sampling event that lay at the basis of the measurement. The IMERS database was set up at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in response to the growing need of a general repository that could store the data resulting from sampling campaigns in a uniform way. The database has been designed for storing measurement data based on sampling of water, sediment, suspended matter and biota. The measurement data, the so-called readings, are stored together with a maximum of information on the actual sampling event that lay at the basis of the measurement. This way, for example biotic readings can be queried together with the environmental readings that were registered during the same visit of a station. There is a maximum of integration of the database with the other databases managed at the Flanders Marine Data and Information Centre. All species records in the IMERS database are directly linked to the APHIA database (WoRMS). The persons and institutes in the IMERS database are linked to IMIS (Integrated Marine Information System). Where relevant the trips in the IMERS database are linked to the trips in MIDAS (Marine Information and Data Acquisition System).

For own use and to allow external users of the database to manually input data into the IMERS system, an input tool has been developed. This input programme can be used for both online and offline input. In the case of offline input (for example on board of a research vessel) the data is temporarily stored in a local database before it is uploaded to the server database. Currently the IMERS database contains over 230,000 biotic records and more than 31,000 records for environmental parameters. A web interface allowing online consultation of the public part of these data can be found on http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/imers.