The purpose of this portal is to fill a major gap in global biodiversity information by making biodiversity information on shallow marine ecosystems of the Red Sea & Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean accessible via a public web-based platform.

The portal will support multiple mechanisms to help secure and improve access to data, targeting the different principle types of data that users have:

• Site-based records (biodiversity and ecosystem health)
• Taxonomic (species lists and surveys)
• Long term monitoring datasets (combining elements of both)

Given the complexities of data ownership and data structures, the focus is on aggregated/summary data that is:

• Useful for decision makers and general purposes
• Gives the data owner a citable record
• Accurately points to the data owner for access to more detailed data