SadcoData Now Available

SADCO holds a large amount of marine data for the southern African subcontinent.  Following its 20th  anniversary, SADCO is now providing universal free and open access to this data for research purposes.

http://sadco.csir.co.za

Users will need to register once for admin purposes, but the extractions are done on-line (users are informed by e-mail that the extraction is complete, which should take between 10 seconds and 3 minutes). The extraction route is via the Inventory, which is searchable according to ship, project name, date, etc. Data types include hydrographic cruises, wave buoys, weather stations, ARGO floats, etc. Once extracted, SADCO data can be imported directly into ODV (free software) format, which produces a quality plot of the parameters within a couple of clicks. SADCO is following global trends in making data more freely available for research. Not only does this increase usage of the data, specifically for research purposes, but it is also believed that the sense of scientific investigation into the oceans is engendered – even among the public and schools. SADCO is funded by a consortium (Department of Environmental Affairs, CSIR, SA Navy, the National Research Foundation and the Namibian Ministry for Fisheries and Marine Resources).

For more information, contact Marten Gründlingh at mgrundli@csir.co.za is data for research purposes.