The CLSAR (Common Language for SAR) is a proposed international standard to ensure common statistics for SAR reporting. Prior to CLSAR, there was no ready way to compare SAR incidents from one agency using their own internal nomenclature (and language) to another.

For example:
Agency 1 reports an incident where a vessel struck a rock and refers to this as a cause of "Grounding"
Agency 2 reports a similar incident but refers to the cause as a "Collision"

If the worlds SAR organizations ever to have a clear picture of international stats, then a unified reporting language is necessary.

CLSAR provides a standard system for the classification of various aspects of SAR and has been integrated into the SAR Management System dictionaries. Agencies remain free to continue to use their own nomenclature, however they now simply provide a cross reference to the CLSAR (best match) for each term used.

When the SMS provides data to national and international reporting systems the CLSAR code number will be the common thread that allows all reported data to be correctly interpreted.

When selecting the CLSAR term in any SMS dictionary always choose the best possible match. In some cases the structure of the CLSAR may provide insight into how to better structure the terms in your organization.