The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) is a national facility managed and operated by the National Oceanography Centre. As the UK’s National Oceanographic Data Centre and a marine data centre within NERC’s Environmental Data Service, it preserves, manages and distributes information about the oceans and marine environment. BODC provides access to more than 130,000 unique datasets, supporting research and practical questions ranging from coastal flood risk to climate change.

Researchers and other users can search marine data, explore inventories and vocabularies, and submit data for preservation and distribution. BODC offers guidance, templates and processing services for a wide range of observations, including CTD profiles, sea-level measurements, water samples, currents, waves, glider data and model outputs. Its resources include a cruise inventory covering UK research vessel activity from 1947 onward, data delivery formats, parameter codes, web services and software products.

BODC also contributes to collaborative initiatives, including Argo, the MERMAN database and GEBCO’s work on publicly available ocean bathymetry. Its services help make marine data discoverable and usable over time.