Data Governance

Welcome to the Centre for Marine Applied Research (CMAR) Data Governance site. This site documents how Water Quality data from CMAR’s Coastal Monitoring Program is collected, processed, Quality Controlled, and published. It provides technical details so that anyone working with the data can understand and use it appropriately.

Visit the Coastal Monitoring Program homepage for a program overview, Data Access Map, and summary reports.

This site is under active development; content is being added and revised. Last updated: September 29, 2026.

Coastal Monitoring Program

CMAR’s Coastal Monitoring Program is an ongoing data collection effort to:

  • Inform development of coastal industry
  • Guide government policy and management decisions
  • Encourage environmental stewardship
  • Ensure preparedness for climate change

Water Quality Data

CMAR collects Water Quality data (dissolved oxygen, salinity, sensor depth, temperature) using sensors deployed on stationary moorings. See the Water Quality Data page for more information on data collection, sensor calibration and validation, and data access.

Click on a variable in the menu bar above for more detailed information about the variable, CMAR measurements, and Quality Control thresholds.

Code

CMAR has developed and maintains a suite of packages in R (free, open-source statistical software) to facilitate processing Coastal Monitoring Program data. Water Quality data was compiled using the sensorstrings package. Quality Control flags were applied using the qaqcmar package. Both packages can be viewed or installed from GitHub.

Hex stickers for the sensorstrings and qaqcmar R packages.

Quality Control

Automated Quality Control (QC) tests have been applied to the data to identify outlying and unexpected observations. See the QC Overview page for an overview of the QC workflow. See the QC Tests & Thresholds page to learn more about the Quality Control tests applied to the Water Quality data.

Data Products

Coastal Monitoring Program Water Quality data can be accessed from several platforms. Summary reports are available on the CMAR Data Access Map on the Coastal Monitoring Program Homepage. Full data sets can be downloaded from the Nova Scotia Open Data Portal and the Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System (CIOOS) Atlantic catalogue.