BIOT Science Expedition 2014 - contribution to Chagos Science Resource Portal - Dr Elizabeth Widman

Chagos Science Resource Portal

Dr Elizabeth Widman, University of Warwick

I am leading on the ambitious ‘Chagos Science Resource Portal’ project which is, among other things, aiming to develop an online relational database summarising all Chagos scientific output (Figure 28). The resource portal developed out of earlier BIOT Science Advisory Group (SAG) requests for expedition logs and the project was approved by the SAG and BIOT Administration two years ago. The CCT is providing some limited funding for the portal at present which will enable the development of the site architecture. 

The expedition has greatly added to the development of the resource portal by giving me a first-hand understanding of Chagos as a whole as well as the research being undertaken there. Having had the opportunity to do 27 dives, 63 sea-cucumber transects, countless hours snorkelling around the boats, assisting directly in both bird work (capturing and banding sooty tern chicks and also doing estimates for egg density) and with crab counts on Eagle Island has given me a better understanding of the data-sets I will be incorporating into the resource portal and also the needs of the scientists that will be accessing it.

As part of the Pacific Marlin seminar series I presented the ‘Chagos Resource Portal’ as a concept to the 2014 expedition team. This created a platform for discussions on how to best incorporate existing and future datasets.

A major initiative of the 2014 science expedition was to consolidate and identify key longterm monitoring sites and document these using GPS points, detailed site descriptions and photography. These sites, and the data associated with them, will be a key part of the ‘Chagos Resource Portal’.

Figure 28: Overview of Chagos Science Resource Portal