Digital Repositories for Coastal Wetland Biodiversity in South Asia: A Conceptual Framework from India

Wetlands support a variety of life forms, which are inextricably linked with the goods and services provided by them. Documentation of the biological resources of wetlands is essential in order to aid in their conservation. Digital repositories ensure wide and easy access to such complex biodiversityinformation and are gaining significance in conservation planning. However, such digital repositories are few at the regional level, especially in South Asia, an area of high coastal and marine biodiversity. This chapter provides an overview of digital repositories in general and the design and architecture of Coastal and Marine BiodiversityIntegration Network (CoMBINe), a national Web portal on coastal biodiversityof India, designed to be scalable vertically to include data with respect to other taxonomic groups and horizontally to cover other countries.