SEA-SEARCH - Research Cruises - Cruise Summary Reports

Currently, the Cruise Summary Reports database covers cruises from 1873 till today from 30 coastal states in Europe - a total of more than 37 000 cruises, in all European waters and global oceans. This also includes historic CSRs from European countries, that have been loaded from the ICES database from 1960 onwards.

Cruise Summary Reports (CSR = former ROSCOPs) are the usual means for reporting on cruises or field experiments at sea. Traditionally, it is the Chief Scientist's obligation to submit a CSR to his/her National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) not later than two weeks after the cruise. This provides a first level inventory of measurements and samples collected at sea. The national CSRs are then forwarded to ICES for further compilation.

ENTERING AND MAINTENANCE OF CSRs

The Sea-Search partners coordinate the population of the CSR database with CSRs from their country. Within the Sea-Search project an innovative infrastructure has been developed and installed by the Deutsches Ozeanographisches Datenzentrum (DOD) to streamline the entering and updating of CSRs (CSRONLINE) and the searching and presenting of CSRs (CSRRETRIEVAL) by means of the internet.

Two options have been developed and are available for updating:

Using CSRONLINE
Submitting CSR entries in an ISO19115 compliant XML format

A number of partners (=members) make use of the CSRONLINE system and recommend the chief scientists in their country to enter their CSRs online. After login CSRONLINE offers a choice of blank fields or to use a previous report as template, thus providing a very effective entry. Filled out once, further CSRs are very simply updated by successive cruises or experiments. Very often just the dates have to be changed. After entry, the chief scientist receives an extra reference number and password by e-mail, which will allow him / her to update this specific CSR in a further session. Also chief scientists can include attachments, such as track charts and station maps.

A password is needed for access by members.
Non members supply their data in a different way.

Other partners (=non-members) operate their own national CSR entry system and contribute their national CSRs at regular intervals to DOD for inclusion in the CSRRETRIEVAL database. For this exchange an ISO19115 compliant XML schema has been designed and export - import routines are installed. A copy of new CSRs is sent at regular intervals by DOD to ICES and to the respective National Oceanographic Institute.

This system has been tested by Sea-Search partners and was presented to the "ICES Working Group on Marine Data Management" (MDM) and to the IOC Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE). Many comments for improvements were taken on board. CSRONLINE and CSRRETRIEVAL are now fully operational and in use for maintaining and providing an up-to-date overview of CSRs of cruises in all marine waters around Europe and undertaken by European institutes.

QUERYING CSRs

The CSR database can be queried and browsed by users via the Sea-Search web portal. Users can specify a combination of search criteria for e.g. area, date, country, ship or measurement type. The resulting entries, matching the query, are presented in a browse list, which indicates the number selected and allows for browsing between the listed results. Additional details per entry can be viewed and the user can skip from one entry to another. In addition the user can call up trackcharts or stationlists, if provided by the chief scientist.

CSRONLINE Members

Here is a list of countries and institutes that use CSRONLINE for online entry and maintenance of national CSRs:

	Institute	Contact
	Bulgarian National Oceanographic Data Centre (BGODC)	Atanas Palazov
	Department of Fisheries and Marine Research, Oceanography Centre(DFMR-OC)	George Zodiatis
	National Environmental Research Institute (NERI)	Ole Manscher
	Marine Systems Institute at Tallinn Technical University (MSI)	Madis-Jaak Lilover
	Finnish Institute of Marine Research (FIMR)	Riitta Olsonen
	Deutsches Ozeanographisches Datenzentrum (DOD)	Friedrich Nast
	Oceanological Research Centre and DNA (TSU-UORC)	Kahkaber Bilashvili
	Marine Research Institute (MRI)	Hedinn Valdimarsson
	Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute (IOLR)	Isaac Gertman
	Institute of Aquatic Ecology - University of Latvia (IAE-UL)	Rita Polkanen
	Centre of Marine Research - Ministry of the Environment (CMR)	Aiste Kubiliute
	IOI-Malta Operational Centre (IOI-MOC)	Aldo Drago
	Institute Nationale de Recherche Halieutique (INRH)	Karim Hilmi
	National Oceanographic Data Committee (NODC)	Taco de Bruin
	Norwegian Marine Data Centre - Institute of Marine Research (IMR)	Helge Sagen
	Institute of Meteorology and Water management - Maritime Branch (IMGW-OM)	Wlodzimierz Krzyminski
	Instituto Hidrografico (IHPT)	Rui Baptista
	National Institute for Marine Research and Development (NIMRD)	Claudia Coman
	Instituto Espanol de Oceanografia (IEC)	Demetrio de Armas
	Swedisch Meterological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI)	Jan Szaron
	Marine Hydrophysical Institute - Ukrainian National Academy of Science (MHI)	Alexey Khaliulin

If a researcher from one of these countries wants to enter a CSR, then he/she should contact their NODC or DOD by email getting a username and a password to proof authenticity. The national centre will be notified by DOD of CSR's entered and DOD will forward the CSR's to ICES.

CSRONLINE Non-members

In case a researcher originates from another country, then he/she has to contact it's NODC for reporting CSR data to its national CSR system. These are regularly transferred to DOD for inclusion in the CSRRETRIEVAL database:

	Institute	Contact
	Management Unit of the Mathematical Models of the North Sea (MUMM)	Serge Scory
	Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (IORS)	Vlado Dadic
	Systemes d'Informations Scientifiques pour la Mer (IFREMER-SISMER)	Catherine Maillard
	Hellenic National Oceanographic Data Centre (HNODC-NCMR)	Stathios Balopoulos
	Irish Marine Data Centre - Marine Institute	Martina Hennessy
	Marine Environmental Research Centre (ENEA-CRAM)	Giuseppe Manzella
	Instituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS)	Alessandra Giorgetti
	All Russian Research Institute of Hydro-Meteorological Information RNODC)	Nickolay Mikhailov
	Middle East Technical University - Institute of Marine Sciences (METU-IMS)	Sukru Besiktepe
	British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)	Lesley Rickards