Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) Catalog

The Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) Catalog is the authoritative collection of ecological units (terms + definitions) and unit relationships (the CMECS classification framework).

The CMECS Catalog is the complete representation of the CMECS classification. It contains all units that are or have been members of the CMECS classification throughout its lifecycle, as well as various annotations that provide metadata for each unit that enable Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse (FAIR, https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/). The CMECS Catalog (cmecs.owl) file is stored and managed in a Git repository; authoritative versions are publicly released via the NOAA-OCM/cmecs GitHub as changes are made. Version releases also include the CMECS Catalog in CSV and XLSX formats. A browsable text output of the CMECS Catalog ecological units and implementation guidance, the CMECS Thesaurus, is also available in PDF and MD formats.

This release includes changes to the Substrate Component Unit Codes and fixes to Biotic Component typographical errors. Details are available on the CMECS GitHub v1.1.1 Release Page.

Questions? Please contact the CMECS Implementation Group at [e-mail]

For more information about the CMECS Catalog, see the https://github.com/NOAA-OCM/cmecs/wiki.

For more information about CMECS, including technical guidance and classification examples, visit the NOAA Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping (IOCM) team's CMECS webpage.

CMECS follows a Dynamic Standard Process to review and adopt changes that are proposed by the CMECS user community when necessary. More information about CMECS maintenance can be found on the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) CMECS webpage under the Vocabulary Maintenance section, along with instructions for proposing revisions to CMECS and a form for submitting proposals.