Welcome to SEAMAP!

The Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) is a cooperative program to facilitate the collection, management, and dissemination of fishery-independent data from the waters of the southeastern United States. Data collected via SEAMAP are relied upon by government agencies, the commercial and recreational fishing industries, researchers, and others to enhance knowledge of marine fisheries and their associated ecosystems. Since its beginning in 1981 in the Gulf of Mexico, SEAMAP has evolved into three components (see Background), each having developed long-term data collection programs for monitoring valuable marine resources within three geographic regions: Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic (SEAMAP-SA), and Caribbean.

Operating independently and separated geographically, each SEAMAP component plans and conducts surveys, as well as disseminates information, in accordance with policies and guidelines established by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

The goals of SEAMAP are to:

  • collect long-term, standardized, fishery-independent data consistent with established fisheries data systems on the condition of regional living marine resources and their environment, and make information and analyses available to SEDAR assessment teams and regional resource managers
  • cooperatively plan and evaluate SEAMAP-sponsored activities
  • operate the SEAMAP data management systems (Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, Caribbean) for efficient management, timely dissemination, and analysis of fishery-independent data and information
  • identify and describe existing non-SEAMAP databases and activities that are of value in fishery-independent assessments of regional living marine resources
  • coordinate and document SEAMAP activities and disseminate programmatic information

The 2021-2025 SEAMAP Management Plan provides a statement of current goals, management policies, and procedures for all SEAMAP components and partnerships. The plan also serves as a reference on SEAMAP history and accomplishments. The SEAMAP 2021-2025 Strategic Plan provides a prioritized list of future project activities for each of the SEAMAP components. The SEAMAP-SA Story Map and SEAMAP-SA Surveys Dashboard provide an overview of the program and data. Further details on the history and past activities of SEAMAP components can be found in previous management plans: SEAMAP 2016-2020 Management Plan, SEAMAP 2011-2015 Management Plan. The COVID-19 Impacts document provides a summary of the implications of COVID-19 for SEAMAP-SA surveys.