Project Lead: PacMARA

Contact: info@pacmara.org

The Data Gaps Inventory project was based on an initial scoping study completed in 2004. It identified major gaps in marine data in BC. There have been several studies in BC commenting on data gaps in various fields, but before this project no effort has yet been made to tie these together in one comprehensive document. Furthermore, there has been no attempt to strategically analyze how to address these numerous gaps.

The goal of the Data Gaps Inventory is to identify what data currently exist in BC and where they can be found, as well as where the knowledge gaps lie. The emphasis is on geo-referenced datasets such as GIS, or those that could easily be imported into a GIS.

The Inventory also identifies older datasets that are not in an accessible electronic format, since they could be valuable sources of data in the future if funding becomes available to convert them into electronic format. Generally, the digitization of data is much less expensive than new surveys, and can add historical perspective.

This analysis will help direct future marine research and digitization priorities in BC.