The centralized data management office (CDMO) is maintained in support of the system-wide monitoring program and related nerrs activities

The University of South Carolina received an $880,967 Cooperative Agreement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Coastal Zone Management Estuarine Research Reserves program (CFDA 11.420) for the 24-month period of October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2027. The award funds the Centralized Data Management Office (CDMO), housed at the university's Columbia, South Carolina campus, which serves as the primary data infrastructure hub for the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). The CDMO manages collection, assimilation, and exchange of high-quality data, metadata, and information across all NERRS sites, state Coastal Zone Management (CZM) programs, and NOAA's Office for Coastal Management (OCM), as well as other state, tribal, and federally-funded education, monitoring, and research programs.

The CDMO's primary deliverables include long-term database and information management services, technical support for the System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP), and data management oversight for the NERRS Science Collaborative (NSC) program. Specific activities encompass quality assurance/quality control (QAQC) protocols, data documentation, data and information dissemination, and data archival services. The CDMO also supports data analysis initiatives prioritized by OCM, facilitates interaction and coordination among NERRS sites, associated projects, and program users, and promotes awareness of NERRS goals and activities to support research, management, educational, and outreach activities across the national environmental monitoring backbone.

The purpose of the CDMO, housed at the university of south carolina, is to manage the basic infrastructure and data protocol to support the collection, assimilation and exchange of high-quality data, metadata, and information within the framework of nerrs sites, state coastal zone management (CZM) programs and NOAA office for coastal management (OCM), as well as other state, tribal and federally-funded education, monitoring and research programs. This proposal requests: continued funding to support the CDMO in providing and promoting long-term database and information management, as well as facilitating interaction within and among nerrs sites, associated projects and programs, CZM programs, and other users of the data and derived information. Primary foci will be data and information management and technical support for swmp to increase the awareness of nerrs goals and activities and to support associated research, management, educational and outreach activities, and the nerrs as a member of a national environmental monitoring backbone. Continued funding to provide data management support to the nerrs science collaborative (NSC) program. The role of the CDMO is to ensure that projects funded by the NSC adhere to established NOAA data management protocols including qaqc, data documentation, data and information dissemination, and data archival. Funding to continue supporting the nerrs and swmp with OCM prioritized swmp data analysis initiatives. No match is required since this award offers system-wide support to the nerrs. The requested 24-month funding period is 1 october 2025 30 september 2027 and the total amount requested is $880,967. As our annual funding cycle overlaps and spans multiple fiscal years (FY), we refer to our funding cycle by the calendar year in which IT begins, in this case 2025 for FY25. The core CDMO funding request is $758,867. We are also requesting $72,100 in operations funds to provide basic data and information management support to the NSC program and $50,000 to support ongoing and to be determined new swmp data analysis/synthesis efforts. Our funding request amounts have not changed from the previous year.