The Catch Accounting and Monitoring System (CAMS) is a joint venture between the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) to implement a shared data system to support quota monitoring, stock assessments, and other programs reliant on fisheries-dependent data. The goal of CAMS is to provide a single, comprehensive source for all catch in the Greater Atlantic region (landings and discards) for quota monitoring, stock assessment, protected resource estimation, ecosystem modeling, and other needs of GARFO and the NEFSC in a fully documented relational database with appropriate user views and tables.
Prior to the development of the CAMS project, GARFO and the NEFSC developed and maintained two parallel systems for catch monitoring and accounting. Mission needs for quota monitoring led to GARFO operating one system, while the mission needs for stock assessments and other research activities led to the NEFSC operating the other system. The two systems each integrated data across a wide array of separate fishery information systems, and each approached integration and record matching slightly differently, resulting in different estimates of landings and discards that raised and continue to raise internal and external stakeholder concerns. Additionally, the two independent systems required significant maintenance and upgrading as regulations and data streams changed. This was an inefficient use of resources and was deemed no longer effective for providing the best information for science and management support.
To address both sets of mission needs, remove system silos, and redundant operational costs, the NEFSC and GARFO have jointly sponsored the development and implementation of the CAMS project. Initial project scoping and formation of working groups started in November 2019 with system development occurring over the course of three years. The CAMS Core Team included staff from GARFO’s Analysis and Program Support Division and the NEFSC’s Resource Evaluation and Assessment Division with additional project management and IT support. The logic and algorithms supporting CAMS build on previous knowledge bases, while incorporating updated matching and linking processes across the various fishery data sources. The current outputs of CAMS include 1) landings, value, and effort, 2) discards, 3) matched trip tables, and 4) support tables.
Documentation
Refer to the Documentation for full explanations of the methods, processes, and business rules used in generating the CAMS output tables.
Data Dictionary - complete searchable data dictionary
Getting Started
Quick Start Guides - Table relationship information and common SQL query examples
Submitting Issues
NOAA employees with access to the CAMS Jira project are encouraged to submit bugs and enhancement requests via https://apps-st.fisheries.noaa.gov/jira/projects/CAMSNR/
For those without access to this Jira project, you can contact the CAMS team with questions, bug notifications, and enhancement requests via email at nmfs.gar.camshelp@noaa.gov.
Contributing to Development
NMFS employees are welcome to contribute to development. Members of the development team and submit changes via github branches directly. Others are able to fork the code and submit pull requests.
Conduct - Code of contact for contributing to the project
Development - Instructions for branching and development to protect the main production code
Contributing - Instruction for those not on the MAPS dev team to contribute modules or code through pull requests
R style guide - Info on the R style, following the tidyverse guidelines
Code - Monitoring Analysis Program System (MAPS) is the program that runs the code and generates the CAMS output tables. The code is currently available to programming team members. NOAA employees can submit an issues to request access if needed.
Disclaimer
This repository is a scientific product and is not official communication of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the United States Department of Commerce. All NOAA GitHub project code is provided on an ‘as is’ basis and the user assumes responsibility for its use. Any claims against the Department of Commerce or Department of Commerce bureaus stemming from the use of this GitHub project will be governed by all applicable Federal law. Any reference to specific commercial products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply their endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce seal and logo, or the seal and logo of a DOC bureau, shall not be used in any manner to imply endorsement of any commercial product or activity by DOC or the United States Government.
Software code created by U.S. Government employees is not subject to copyright in the United States (17 U.S.C. §105). The United States/Department of Commerce reserve all rights to seek and obtain copyright protection in countries other than the United States for Software authored in its entirety by the Department of Commerce. To this end, the Department of Commerce hereby grants to Recipient a royalty-free, nonexclusive license to use, copy, and create derivative works of the Software outside of the United States.