1  INTRODUCTION TO THE DATABASE DOCUMENT SERIES

The National Institute of Water and Atmosphere Research (NIWA) is Data Manager and Custodian for the research data owned by the Ministry of Fisheries (MFish).

The Ministry of Fisheries data sets incorporates historic research data, data collected or held by MAF Fisheries prior to the split in 1995 of policy to the Ministry of Fisheries and research to NIWA, and since 1995 data collected by NIWA and other research providers for the Ministry of Fisheries. 

This document describes the recreational fishing database rec_data, and is part of the database documentation series produced by NIWA. It supersedes the previous documentation by Fisher (1998)[1][1] [1] including interim revisions on this database.

All documents in this series include an introduction to the database design, a description of the main data structures accompanied by an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), and a listing of all the main tables. The ERD graphically shows the relationships between the tables in rec_data, and the relationships between these tables and other databases.

This document is intended as a guide for users and administrators of the rec_data database.

Access to this database is restricted to specific nominated personnel as specified in the current Schedule 6 of the Data Management contract between the Ministry of Fisheries and NIWA. Any requests for data should in the first instance be directed to the Ministry of Fisheries.

1Fisher, D.O. 1998: Database documentation: rec_data. NIWA Internal Report No. 41. 47p.