NOAA's National Ocean Service is composed of a very diverse set of eleven line offices and programs created to observe, understand, and manage our nation's coastal and marine resources, measure and predict coastal and ocean phenomena, protect large areas of the oceans, ensure safe navigation, and provide tools and information to protect and restore coastal and marine resources. The offices span a broad mission covering physical, chemical, and biological oceanography; geodesy and positioning, charting and navigation, response and restoration, coastal zone management, and protection of coastal and ocean resources. Functionally, NOS' operations encompass the full spectrum of activities from research-to-operations to product development and delivery, coupled with training and capacity building.

Many of these activities are performed to meet specific mandates and/or regulatory program needs. For instance, some water level, charting, and geodetic observing systems can trace their roots back two-hundred years to 1807 and the creation of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey by Thomas Jefferson. Others can trace origins back to a specific piece of important legislation, such as the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, the 1972 Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, and the more recent Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000. Still others are by Executive Order such as those to create the national system of Marine Protected Areas.

Although the requirements for and scope of the observing systems are as diverse as the organizational structure, the functionality of the systems are fundamentally the same. Most all can be described as operational “end-to-end” systems; with data and information collection; data and information quality control and processing; data synthesis and product delivery. All have components of technology transfer and training, education and outreach, and focused partnership with stakeholders to make sure national, state, and local needs are met.

None of the observing systems are in place to simply collect and store data. The data and information are used and applied on a continuous basis to generate over one thousand products and services from processed data, images, forecasts and ocean policy statements. To provide the scientific basis for the products, NOS has a strong basic research component in partnership with academia as well as with applied NOAA research programs. There are integrated research-to-operations programs to ensure the latest science and observing system technologies are developed and used. Data bases and data base tools are being developed not only for the traditional water level and geodetic data sets, but also for water quality data sets and for spatial data sets such as shoreline change and topography.

An active area for NOS is ensuring that the diverse observing systems have appropriate operational intersections in the end-to-end process to make sure they meet, or leverage from or with, other subsystem capabilities. For example, the NOS managed National Water Level Program (NWLP) supports the operational needs of NOAA tsunami and storm surge warning programs and provides a federal backbone role for the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and the regional observing system components. NWLP and NOS geodetic programs are working with the National Estuarine Research Reserve program to integrate long-term monitoring and research needs. The observing systems support an active ocean and coastal forecasting capability at NOS for a broad variety of applications, including port operations, coupled models for ecosystem research, and storm surge and inundation model development. By listening to our user community and understanding our diverse programs and capabilities, NOS is demonstrating the ability to integrate activities in a focused, meaningful way that improves products and services to all customers.