Accessing IOTC Reference Data
The IOTC reference data, including code lists and geospatial reference datasets, can be accessed through several complementary methods. The IOTC Reference Data Catalogue provides the primary web interface for browsing these resources through interactive tables and downloading tabular datasets as CSV files, and geospatial datasets in ESRI Shapefile and GeoPackage (GPKG) formats.
For automated workflows and programmatic access, the reference data are also available through direct downloads from the IOTC data server, through the IOTC GitHub repository, which provides version-controlled datasets and an R data package, and through the Fisheries Data Interoperability Working Group (FDIWG) GitHub repository, where IOTC code lists are maintained in tabular formats aligned with other reference standards of the Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics of the FAO (CWP). The datasets can also be downloaded directly from the Zenodo record or retrieved programmatically using R (see Section Zenodo Repository).
The sections below describe the different access methods and provide examples of how the datasets can be retrieved and used, including examples in R for downloading tabular and spatial reference datasets.
Return back to the list of reference data domains.
IOTC Reference Data Catalogue
Web Interface
The Reference Data Catalogue provides interactive tables for each code list.
- Browse and search code lists directly in the catalogue interface
- Download individual code lists as CSV files
- Download spatial layers as GPKG and ESRI Shapefile formats.
This interface is the easiest way to explore the available reference data.
Direct Download from the IOTC Server
Tabular Data
Code lists in CSV format can be accessed directly from the IOTC server.
The general URL template is:
https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/<domain_name>/codelists/<codelist_name>.csv
Domains currently available include: admin, fisheries, biology, economics, data, legacy.
All CSV tables are exported using UTF-8 with Byte Order Mark (BOM). The BOM is a sequence of bytes placed at the beginning of a text file that identifies its character encoding. This ensures full Unicode compatibility and allows most versions of Microsoft Excel to correctly detect the file encoding when the CSV file is opened directly.
Troubleshooting: If special characters (e.g. accented letters) are not displayed correctly, or if the data are not separated into columns as expected, import the CSV file into Microsoft Excel using Data → From Text/CSV (or the equivalent import option in your version of Excel) rather than opening the file directly. This allows the file encoding (UTF-8) and delimiter to be selected or automatically detected during the import process.
Examples in R
# Fishing fleet code list from admin domain
cl_fleets <- utils::read.csv("https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/admin/codelists/FLEETS.csv")
# Display code list first rows
head(cl_fleets)## code name_en name_fr cpc_code flag_code
## 1 ANT Netherlands Antilles Antilles néerlandaises ANT
## 2 ARE United Arab Emirates Émirats arabes unis ARE
## 3 ATF France (OT) France (Territoires) ATF ATF
## 4 AUS Australia Australie AUS AUS
## 5 BGD Bangladesh Bangladesh BGD BGD
## 6 BHR Bahrain Bahreïn BHR# Vessel type code list from fisheries domain
cl_vessel_types <- utils::read.csv("https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/fisheries/codelists/VESSEL_TYPES.csv")
# Turtle species code list from biology domain
cl_turtles <- utils::read.csv("https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/biology/codelists/SPECIES_TURTLES.csv")
# Currencies code list from economic domain
cl_currencies <- utils::read.csv("https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/economics/codelists/COUNTRY_CURRENCIES.csv")
# Discard data source code list from data domain
cl_data_sources_di <- utils::read.csv("https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/data/codelists/DATA_SOURCES_DI.csv")Geospatial Data
Geospatial reference datasets are available from the IOTC data server in GeoPackage (GPKG) and ESRI Shapefile formats.
The URL template for GPKG files is:
https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/<domain_name>/gpkg_files/<codelist_name>.csv
The URL template for ESRI files is:
https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/<domain_name>/shapefiles/<codelist_name>.csv
Example in R
## Example of R script for extracting the National Jurisdiction Areas
NJA_AREAS_SF <- sf::st_read("https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/admin/gpkg_files/IO_NJA_AREAS.gpkg")## Reading layer `IO_NJA_AREAS' from data source
## `https://data.iotc.org/reference/latest/domain/admin/gpkg_files/IO_NJA_AREAS.gpkg' using driver `GPKG'
## Simple feature collection with 43 features and 8 fields
## Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
## Dimension: XY
## Bounding box: xmin: 20 ymin: -56.52236 xmax: 150 ymax: 30.51491
## Geodetic CRS: WGS 84# Visualise the spatial layer
plot(NJA_AREAS_SF["CODE"])
IOTC GitHub repository
The IOTC code lists are also available through the IOTC GitHub repository, which provides:
an R data package
the underlying
.rdadatasetsfull version control of the reference data.
https://github.com/iotc-secretariat/iotc-data-reference-codelists
Installation as an R Package
The IOTC code lists are available as an R data package, which can be installed directly from GitHub.
# Install the package
install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("iotc-secretariat/iotc-data-reference-codelists")
# Load the package
library(iotc.data.reference.codelists)
# List available datasets
data(package = "iotc.data.reference.codelists")
# Access a dataset
iotc.data.reference.codelists::FLEETSDirect Download of R Data Objects
Individual datasets can also be downloaded directly from GitHub.
# Define code list name
dataset <- "AREAS_OF_OPERATION"
# Create URL
url <- paste0(
"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iotc-secretariat/iotc-data-reference-codelists/master/data/",
dataset,
".rda"
)
# Generic function for download
load_github_rda <- function(url) {
tmp <- tempfile(fileext = ".rda")
download.file(url, tmp, mode = "wb", method = "libcurl")
load(tmp, envir = .GlobalEnv)
}
# Load the dataset
load_github_rda(url)Cloning the Repository
To access all code lists locally, clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/iotc-secretariat/iotc-data-reference-codelists.gitInstall the Package from a Local Clone
After cloning the repository:
- Open the project folder in RStudio (open the
.Rprojfile if available) - Install the package locally:
devtools::install()FDIWG GitHub Repository
The IOTC code lists are available in tabular CSV format from the Fisheries Data Interoperability Working Group repository, in formats aligned with other CWP code lists.
https://github.com/fdiwg/fdi-codelists/tree/main/regional/iotc
Direct CSV Download
Browse files on GitHub and download CSVs individually.
Download via R
Code lists can be accessed directly from GitHub using R:
domain <- "admin"
codelist <- "cl_fleets"
url <- paste0(
"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fdiwg/fdi-codelists/main/regional/iotc/",
domain, "/", codelist, ".csv"
)
cl <- utils::read.csv(url)
head(cl)Cloning the Repository
To access all code lists locally, clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/fdiwg/fdi-codelists.gitZenodo Repository
The IOTC code lists are archived on Zenodo to ensure long-term preservation and citation through a DOI.
Direct Download
All datasets can be downloaded directly from the Zenodo record interface as archived files.
Access via R
The datasets can also be accessed programmatically using the zen4R R package. They are available in CSV, Parquet, and RDA formats, and are typically downloaded as ZIP archives.
Examples in R
# Install package
install.packages("zen4R")
library(zen4R)
# Retrieve the code lists in CSV format
download_zenodo(doi = "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15743874", files = "iotc_codelists_csv.zip")
# Retrieve the code lists in parquet format
download_zenodo(doi = "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15743874", files = "iotc_codelists_parquet.zip")