EMODnet was represented at an EU-China Blue Partnership Forum for the Oceans that took place on the 23rd of September in Shenzhen, China. The Forum, organized by EC DG MARE and Chinese authorities, served as a tool to advance jointly on relevant topics such as the Blue Economy, International Fisheries and Global Ocean Governance.
We are pleased to announce the release of the OSL 3.0 Final Report and OSL 3.0 Highlights Video. These resources provide a summary of the event which took place in early Spring 2023, and the key results and outcomes. Thanks to all co-organisers, mentors, coaches and participants for an engaging and interactive event that pushed the boundaries of marine data innovation.
Did you know that EMODnet Chemistry operates the webODV tool to enable users to visualize marine chemistry and wider ocean changes, including eutrophication and contaminants, to drive ocean understanding and to enable informed decision making, utilizing marine knowledge for societal action.
Starting this month, the EMODnet newsletter will include updates on the European Atlas of the Seas the EC DG MARE Ocean Literacy tool, powered by EMODnet. The EU Atlas of the Seas offers 275 marine data layers, with over 50% coming from EMODnet. This month the EU Atlas of the Seas has released 5 new predefined maps, a new tutorial for MyMaps tool, took part in outreach activities at the World Cleanup Day village in Brussels, and more!
Join us on 26-27 September 2023 for a two-day online workshop "EMODnet for Coastal tourism". The workshop will take place over two half-days (mornings) and is designed to explore how the coastal tourism industry can benefit from EMODnet. Participants will discover the potential of EMODnet services for the coastal tourism sector and will be able to engage in cross-regional dialogue with participants from all European sea basins.
On 5 September, EMODnet Chemistry, represented by its Coordinating institute OGS, provided its expertise at the workshop “Building a federated architecture of interoperable databases”. This was part of a series of 5 workshops organised by the Back To Blue initiative to develop a draft roadmap to achieve zero pollution ocean. Each workshop focused on a topic from the Back To Blue issues paper, which was produced after extensive stakeholder consultation and contains the key questions that need to be answered for an effective and workable roadmap.
EMODnet Biology experts completed another data harvest during summer 2023. In this new batch, EMODnet Biology integrated more than 230K new occurrence records from a total of 23 datasets, from which 4 were updates to already existing datasets.
EMODnet Biology and LifeWatch ERIC have joined forces to organize a one-day workshop on citizen science platforms on the 15th of November 2023. This workshop will take place as a hybrid event, with the in-person location being in Lecce, Italy, and will focus on teaching participants how to use Citizen Science platforms, such as Zooniverse and the LifeWatch Citizen Science Platform. The purpose of this Training Session is to create Citizen Science projects and engage volunteers in the historical data rescue and standardization process.
Over 100 stakeholders have already registered for the EMODnet Open Conference 2023! Do you have your ticket yet? We welcome all stakeholders across the ocean observation, marine data, information and knowledge value chain to join us on 29-30 November 2023 in Brussels, Belgium! The call for community (e-/digital) poster abstracts has been extended to 14th September. Don’t miss your chance to apply to present your work!
EMODnet centralisation may be complete, but EMODnet services continue to evolve. Discover the enhancements and latest technical upgrades to the EMODnet Map Viewer, brought to you by the Central Portal Technical team. These upgrades improve marine data discovery and visualization, including new map projections, customized parameter exploration, offering a more efficient and precise marine data exploration than ever before.
EMODnet Geology visited Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, on 26-27 July 2023 to meet with the Caribbean Sea geological organizations to discuss potential collaboration in the sharing and harmonization of marine data and what possibilities EMODnet Geology could provide for the Caribbean area. Besides four EMODnet Geology representatives, also participants from Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico were present in person.
A recent questionnaire to the scientific institutions and marine monitoring laboratories that contribute pollutant data to EMODnet Chemistry, allowed gaining comprehensive and up-to-date insights into the former’s marine pollutant data quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) procedures. You will soon find everything about the questionnaire in a scientific paper (under review). Stay tuned!
EMODnet Biology has completed its first quarter in Phase IV with a new data harvest in conclusion which will increase occurrence results to > 40 million! Data training workshops are also in planning for November 2023 with HCMR and LifeWatch ERIC
The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet ) is pleased to announce the launch of the EMODnet Vision 2035 public consultation! The EMODnet Vision 2035 focuses on service evolution. This builds on a EMODnet Call to Action (launched on 30 November 2023) and on EMODnet’s achievements to-date including the unification of EMODnet services in January 2023, and EMODnet’s ongoing partnership with Copernicus Marine Service to deliver the data infrastructure for the prototype European Digital Twin Ocean, launched in June 2024. The EMODnet Vision 2035 will deliver concrete and realistic goals for EMODnet’s digital services and service offer, to increasingly serve user needs, including directly supporting EU policy, the Blue Economy, Research and Innovation and wider stakeholders, and providing added value for the EU economic agenda and competitiveness, set in the global context. The public consultation (EU Survey, link above) is open to all EMODnet stakeholders and the wider community in Europe and worldwide. You can reply as an individual, organization, network, project or initiative. Results from the survey will be summarized and considered by the EMODnet Vision 2035 Drafting Group of experts that was set up in Spring 2024 to jointly deliver the EMODnet 2035 Vision, with members representing the EMOD-network (partners, associated partners, sea-basin checkpoints) and wider stakeholders. Thank you in advance for your feedback on how EMODnet could/should evolve its services over the next decade to 2035. Please distribute this widely to your professional networks. This survey remains open until 11 September Midnight CEST. Questions relating to the EMODnet Vision 2035 public consultation can be sent to Megan Tijssens: megan.tijssens[at]emodnet.eu .
The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) is excited to announce that registration for the EMODnet Open Conference 2023, on 29-30 November 2023 is now OPEN!
The Digital Ocean Forum 2023 "Unlocking the Potential of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean” took place on the 14-15th of June in Brussels, bringing together marine scientists and wider ocean experts including data scientists and numerical modellers, policymakers, and citizens interested in the co-design and co-creation of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO). EMODnet’s Central Portal Coordinating institute the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) presented EMODnet’s key role in EDITO-Infra, a project in collaboration with Mercator Ocean International to upgrade existing EMODnet and Copernicus Marine Service infrastructures to create a common data lake that will serve the future EU Digital Twin Ocean (DTO). A large number of European funded projects conducting ocean related research and innovation were also invited to participate.
On 27-30 June 2023, EMODnet Physics Coordinating organization, ETT, Italy was a co-organizer of the Ocean Data Week, an event held during The Ocean Race Finale in Genoa, Italy. The event brought together experts from EMODnet Secretariat, Physics, Chemistry and Data Ingestion together with wider stakeholders from the European Commission DG MARE, RTD, IOC-UNESCO, research, civil society and the private sector to exchange on topics spanning European Ocean Observation, the Marine Knowledge Value Chain, the role of Marine Data in EU Policy and Climate Change and Smart Sustainable Cities. EMODnet showcased the importance of diverse data sources highlighting the partnership with The Ocean Race, which saw EMODnet Physics making surface ocean physics data collected from sensors on the racing yacht hulls publicly available in near real-time via the EMODnet Physics dashboard, in collaboration with Copernicus Marine Service.
The Ocean Race, the most extraordinary and toughest around-the-world regatta involving more than 2 million visitors in the past edition, is gearing up for June's Grand Finale in Genoa, Italy. ETT is supporting the race with a technical partnership and as part of the sponsorship, in collaboration with EMODnet Physics and Ingestion partners and sister projects (NAUTILOS, SOCHIC, OCEAN:ICE, EuroSea and others) is organizing “Ocean Data Hours” dedicated to sustainability, data FAIRness, cooperation. The program will propose events, roundtables and workshops that will lead to the Ocean Data Week.
Download the new aggregated and validated datasets from EMODnet Chemistry. They contain quality controlled information on contaminants in seawater, biota and sediment, and on the trophic level of seawater in all European basins. The regional data collections are produced according to specific procedures based on a quality control loop described in the guidelines entitled EMODnet Chemistry Regional sea eutrophication data collection and Quality Control loop. The collections are available on the EMODnet portal in the EMODnet Chemistry Data and Products section and in the Products Catalogue.
From June 7th to 8th, the Biology consortium met in Crete, Greece, and online to wrap up Phase IV and kick off Phase V of the project. Those that were able to travel were extremely well received by our colleagues at HCMR in Crete.
