Oceanographic Research Capacity in the US Virgin Islands

The University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), a small HBCU with campuses on both St Thomas and St Croix, has a growing marine science department that is quickly increasing its capacity for oceanographic monitoring and research due to VI-EPSCoR (National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research in the Virgin Islands) and associations with CariCOOS (the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System). CariCOOS is managed through the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, with funding from NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). Over the past five years two oceanographic data buoys have been deployed increasing the real-time oceanographic data available for the northeastern Caribbean. In addition, researchers at UVI have deployed ADCPs and conducted CTD casts at relevant research sites as part of routine territorial monitoring programs. With VI-EPSCoR funding UVI has developed an Institute for Geocomputational Analysis and Statistic (GeoCAS) to conduct geospatial analysis and to act as a data repository and hosting/serving center for research, environmental and other relevant data. Much of the oceanographic data is available at www.caricoos.org and www.geocas.uvi.edu. As the marine research infrastructure at UVI continues to grow, the oceanographic and marine biology research program at the University’s Center for Marine and Environmental Studies will continue to expand. This will benefit not only UVI researchers but also any researcher with interests in this region of the Caribbean.