Overview   Chemistry

Join EMODnet experts 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’s diverse marine environmental and human activities data/data products and services, and to explore data sharing opportunities from this rapidly expanding Blue Economy sector. Register your interest to join today!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

EMODnet was well represented at the European Maritime Day (EMD) 2023, which took place on 24th-25th May 2023, at the BREST EXPO, Parc des Expositions de Penfeld in Brest, France. EMODnet thematic and data ingestion Coordinators, the Central Portal and Secretariat teams were in attendance, with a variety of roles representing EMODnet at the exhibition and multiple stakeholder workshops related to marine and maritime data for innovation and sustained ocean observations.

On 23rd May 2023 the EMODnet Steering Committee (SC) met in Brest, France, for its 18th meeting, hosted by Ifremer. At the 18th SC meeting, the EMODnet Secretariat announced a change in leadership, with Kate Larkin taking up the position of Head of Secretariat from April 2023 (read her welcome message here). Long-standing Head Jan-Bart Calewaert continues to work in the ocean data space, with more focus on global ocean data partnerships.

As part of the Horizon Europe Blue-Cloud 2026, EMODnet Chemistry is working closely with Copernicus Marine Service and the wider blue research community to extend the existing European federation of marine and inland water data management infrastructures and their services in support of the EU marine and maritime policies. By combining the interests of the European Open Science Cloud and European data infrastructures, the pilot cyber platform Blue-Cloud will evolve into a federated ecosystem offering researchers more FAIRness, advanced analytics and higher data quality. Check out the forthcoming events. (link to the upcoming events in this newsletter including: - 8 June, Blue-Cloud virtual labs - 13-15 June vre-hands-workshop

On 18 April, the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics - OGS, scientific coordinator of EMODnet Chemistry, presented progress made on ocean acidification data at the 5th International Symposium on the Effects of Climate Change on the World's Ocean - ECCWO5 The annual event, held in Bergen, Norway from 17-21 April, brought together experts from around the world to better understand the impacts of climate change on ocean ecosystems, the ecosystem services they provide, and the people, businesses and communities that depend on them.

Thanks to the collaboration between data providers across Europe, EMODnet Ingestion and EMODnet Chemistry, six organisations from six countries have become champions in providing datasets, as well as in sharing and saving them forever: the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Georgia, Italy and Romania. This is reported by EMODnet Chemistry in its collection of success stories with EMODnet Ingestion. The latest update was presented during the 1st Annual EMODnet Ingestion Phase III Progress Meeting, held on 12-13 April 2023 in Larnaca, Cyprus.

At the Second International Ocean Data Conference (IODC-II), the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics - OGS - presented EMODnet as a consolidated example of an integrated and interdisciplinary ocean data system. The event took place on 20 and 21 March at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, to allow members of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) community of UNESCO and all invited guests to present new challenges.

The EMOD-network participated in force at the second edition of the International Ocean Data Conference (IODC-II) on 20-21 March 2023 where the recent EMODnet unification of services was presented, together with dialogues on EMODnet’s contribution to FAIR data and the Global Ocean Data Ecosystem, together with its active input to the UN Ocean Decade Data and Information Strategy. EMODnet was also well represented at the 27th session of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange" (IODE) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, held back-to-back on 22-24 March 2023.

On 27-28 March 2023, over 500 registered participants from 83 countries worldwide joined together for the OSL 3.0 hackathon, representing a diverse community of marine science practitioners, data scientists, IT professionals and innovators.

On 17 March 2023, EMODnet was presented in detail at the Advanced Master in Sustainable Blue Economy during the lecture by Marina Lipizer, researcher at the National Oceanographic Data Centre, managed by the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics - OGS.

The International Ocean Data Conference - II will be held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (France) on 20-21 March 2023 as a hybrid event The previous International Ocean Data Conference held in Poland 2022 concluded with new commitments and recommendations on achieving a “global ocean digital ecosystem” in the context of and as a contribution to the UN Ocean Decade. The IODC-II will focus on the implementation of those commitments and recommendations, and report on the problems faced, solutions found, lessons learned and challenges identified. Abstracts for oral presentations must be submitted before 15 November 2022.

Join us at the third EMODnet Open Sea Lab Hackathon to address Ocean challenges in support of the EU Green Deal and the UN Agenda 2030. During a two-day open data virtual event (27-28 March 2023), participants will have the opportunity to explore and test the new features and advantages brought on by the unification of all seven thematics of EMODnet into one central portal.