Welcome to the CMECS Catalogue of Units! Use this database to browse the CMECS classification and to get summary definitions and descriptions of individual CMECS Units. This database contains the units that were published in Version 3.1 of the Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard with some minor modifications to allow consistent hierarchical sorting of the units. Summary descriptions are provided for all Class and Subclass level units and some Group level units for the Benthic Biology and Surface Geology Components and down to the Geoform and Hydroform levels for the Geoform and Water Column Components, respectively. This database does not currently contain units for the Sub-benthic Soils Component. As the science progresses and CMECS is finalized, additional units and descriptions will be added to the database.

This database was funded by a grant to NatureServe from the Gulf of Mexico Program of the Environmental Protection Agency. Descriptions contained in this database are meant to be relevant to each unit across its full range of distribution, but emphasis on the distribution of each unit within the Gulf of Mexico is provided in the Geographic Range field. Over time more complete global distribution of each unit will be added.