SGDO: 40 years of environmental data on the St. Lawrence

More than 40 years of data on the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence are now accessible via the catalogue of the St. Lawrence Global Observatory (SLGO). This data comes from the database called the Oceanographic Data Management System (ODMS – or Système de gestion des données océanographiques (SGDO) in French) of the Maurice Lamontagne Institute (MLI) of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Covering the river, the estuary and the Gulf, but also the Labrador Sea, the Hudson Bay and the Hudson Strait, these thousands of datasets provide impressive coverage of the St. Lawrence ecosystem all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Figure 1. Screenshot of the SGDO datasets distribution (CIOOS Data Explorer)

Collected since the 1980s, several oceanographic variables are compiled in the SGDO, at different depths:

• water temperature,
• salinity,
• oxygen,
• and several other variables.

These data allow scientists to monitor the state of the St. Lawrence and its evolution over time, including the effects of climate change, and help predict potential impacts on marine species and their habitat.

This unprecedented data sharing initiative between SLGO and the MLI democratizes access to this essential data and greatly promotes their reusability by the scientific community. This collaboration will contribute to improving knowledge of the St. Lawrence and help to better respond to the environmental challenges we face. To explore and download the data, visit SLGO’s Open Data Catalogue.

Figure 2. Temperature readings in June 2023 (graph generated in ERDDAP)