The PAMGUARD Vision and Mission

PAMGUARD's goal is to contribute to better mitigation of the effects of anthropogenic activities and to research that benefits the marine environment by providing improved passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) software within an open source a integrated infrastructure and freely available to all PAM users.

PAMGUARD is an open source (publicly owned and freely available) development which provides:

- a flexible, modular software framework with basic application functionality

- a suite of routines that have the look and feel, and are functionality similar to popular existing PAM software (e.g. Ishmael, Rainbow Click, Logger) but which is capable of working on multiple operating systems (e.g. Windows/Linux) and has the capacity to incorporate new modules as they are developed, including additional detection, localisation, classification and sound visualisation functionality.

- a versatile software/hardware interface to enable flexibility in the configuration of in-sea equipment (number of hydrophones, sensitivities, spacing and geometry).

PAMGUARD is supported for ongoing development and maintenance activities and continues to evolve by:

- Soliciting and drawing upon both user and researcher creativity and innovation to enhance and expand its functionality.

- Benefiting from other ongoing development efforts designed to improve PAM effectiveness

- Ongoing maintenance is supported by a levy paid by those using the software to provide a commercial service (click here for Levy Information)