Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN)

The Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN) is a long-term program that seeks to identify and understand changes within the California national marine sanctuaries managed by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. SIMoN provides resource managers with the information needed for effective decision-making and promotes a basic understanding of the complex and unique marine processes within the California Current Ecosystem. By gathering summary metadata from on-going, recently completed and historic monitoring and research projects within sanctuaries, SIMoN facilitates the critical but often overlooked communication between researchers, resource managers, educators, and the public.

The SIMoN web site (and associated database) provides sanctuary staff, collaborative partners, agencies, and the public a powerful tool to quickly access summary information on hundreds of monitoring and research programs that occur within sanctuaries. In addition, SIMoN provides digital images, maps, and species-level natural history information. The photo library is constantly accessed for high-quality, public-domain images of the organisms and resources found within national marine sanctuaries off the West Coast, and the species database serves as an online field guide.

SIMoN Goals

1. Maintain a database that tracks current and historic monitoring programs and research projects relevant to sanctuary management
2. Integrate existing monitoring programs conducted in West Coast regional sanctuaries to provide a synoptic overview of the marine ecosystem
3. Initiate basic surveys or characterizations of all sanctuary habitats and regions
4. Establish a series of long-term monitoring efforts to fill in critical information gaps
5. Initiate specific, question-driven monitoring efforts with fixed durations
6. Provide timely and pertinent information to managers and decision makers, the research community, and the general public via a website and other venues

SIMoN exists due to the efforts and contributions of hundreds of partners and collaborators, including federal and state agencies, universities and other academic institutions, and numerous non-governmental organizations.