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Maritime Forum

EMODnet Secretariat progress update - September 2015

This update is largely based on the bi-monthly reports of the thematic lots covering the months July-August 2015 supplemented with updates from the Secretariat.

Current progress highlights

Specific progress and achievements of thematic lots include

  • A good part of the work of EMODnet Bathymetry during this period has focused on the preparation of an updated version of the EMODnet Digital Terrain Model (DTM) released in September 2015. EMODnet integrators (GGSgc and MARIS) have incorporated the updated versions of the Regional DTMs received from Regional Coordinators. The new version also includes the High Resolution DTMs for three pilot regions in Ireland, France and Germany as a separate layer with the possibility of zooming in. Partners have provided their contributions for the 2nd Annual Report, that will be drafted after the release of the new DTM. Then number of entries in the Common Data Index (CDI) service and in the SEXTANT catalogue have increased again to 13906 (816 unrestricted, i.e., 6%) and 46 respectively.

  • EMODnet Geology continued compiling information to update the map for European seas through the harmonization of information about seabed substrate at 1:1 million scale, in areas where the higher resolution 1:250000 interpretations were not available. During the summer period, relevant progress towards guidelines for comparing coastal vulnerability was made, even though finding a common approach for all Europe seems unrealistic at present.

  • EMODnet Seabed Habitats achieved the first run ever of a comprehensive EUNIS habitat model for all EU marine basins, namely Baltic, Norwegian, North Sea, Celtic, Atlantic, Macaronesia, Western Mediterranean, Ionian and Central Mediterranean, Aegean and Levantine, plus the Black Sea. The portal has been modified following recommendations from the last EMODnet Steering Committee (SC) meeting and the glossary page has been updated.

  • Work on the implementation a Cloud environment for hosting EMODnet Chemistry services continued, as well as the testing and improvement of the validation workflow of the metadata catalogue. The second annual report describing the work overtaken in the last year was submitted to DG MARE in July 2015.

  • In August 2015, EMODnet Biology portal reached a new milestone, containing over 20 million records from 673 datasets including several long-term national marine biological monitoring data collections. Three out of the four datasets which were digitized on the framework of WP4 (data archaeology and rescue) were delivered and are now being quality controlled. They will eventually be integrated in MedOBIS and EurOBIS nodes.

  • EMODnet Physics was very active in trying to engage possible contributors from Regional Oceanographic Observing Systems (ROOs) to foster developments at the Thematic Assembly Centres level. This also entails the execution of a range of dissemination and engagement actions. Some of them are already scheduled for the coming months in Italy, UK, Germany, Morocco and Turkey. Significant work was devoted to produce the second year annual report giving account of the progress achieved for the period 24 July 2014- 23 July 2015.

  • EMODnet Human Activities accomplished its objective of releasing some new important datasets such as Hydrocarbon Extraction- Active licences and Mariculture-FinFish production. With respect to the portal, a new “View Data” page was released with new functionalities.

  • EMODnet Coastal Mapping is the last thematic lot to join EMODnet family. The kick-off meeting took place in Saint Mandé (France) on the 24th June 2015 a few days before the formal contract was actually signed. The project coordinator managed to attend also the EMODnet Scientific Committee meeting held in Ispra on the 1-2 July 2015 and presented the project there to several audiences. More details available at (https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3783).

EMODnet data portals usage

Since January 2014, thematic portals regularly report their user statistics as part of the EMODnet progress indicators which allows to track interest and areas for improvement.

  • A significant increase in the number of DTMs downloads with respect to the May-June 2015 period has been recorded (from 1650 to 2856). Likewise, the number of visits to the EMODnet Bathymetry portal has reached almost 2000 again.

  • EMODnet Seabed Habitats portal received almost 900 visitors during the period July-September and in contrast to previous periods, most of the users visited the portal for personal use (not research or commercial). The most popular product in terms of downloads was the map of predicted habitats for the North Sea and the Celtic Sea.

  • The volume of data made available through the EMODnet Chemistry portal went on increasing steadily (from 744294 to 764022, with approximately 75% of the data having unrestricted access). Like in the former period, the most downloaded product through the web map service corresponded the Black Sea, in this case “Black Sea->Annual distribution->Annual distribution of Alkalinity in the Black Sea for the period of 1957-2011 (QC of MHI) generated by DIVA”.

  • The volume of data made available through the Physics portal has increased notably due to the incorporation of platforms providing historical validated data. Not surprisingly, the number of download requests has increased by 20%, and once again, half of the requests were originated in Italy. The number of visits, nevertheless, decreased slightly both for the portal views and the map views. So, there were fewer visitors but more usage of the portal services with respect to the previous period.

Challenges to be addressed

  • EMODnet Seabed Habitats reported difficulties to establish seabed habitats classification in certain areas, mainly the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea.

  • One of the challenges of EMODnet Chemistry involve the classification of CDIs per MSFD region. This will be provided in future progress reports, once the boundaries of the MSFD regions have been cleared by EEA and DG Environment, and integrated into the CDI User Interface.

  • After the incorporation of HF radar and glider data, the next step for EMODnet Physics is the integration of the Permanent Service for Sea Level (PSMSL) in the Physics portal.

  • EMODnet Human Activities continues to populate the database on dredging and aggregates extraction. However, getting information on the central and eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea is proving to be particularly challenging.

  • The kick-off meeting of the newly funded EMODnet Coastal Mapping project was complicated due to the short notice and the tight time schedule of partners. In spite to this, most of the project partners attended the meeting and agreed on some priorities such as the development of the portal. Another critical challenge is the production of an algorithm (WP2) to support decisions when making surveys, due in March 2016. In order to get information on the past experiences on surveys, forms are currently prepared to be sent to relevant partners.

Recent meetings and events

  • The 4th EMODnet Steering Committee Meeting took place on 1-2 July 2015 at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra (Italy). It was attended by all the coordinators from the different thematic lots, plus representatives from the Seabasin checkpoints. The coordinator of the recently awarded Coastal Mapping project also joined the meeting and gave a presentation about the project. The minutes of the Steering Committee meeting containing the list of attendees as well as links to the presentations can be found at the Maritime Forum (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3783).

Upcoming EMODnet meetings and events

  • EMODnet Secretariat will participate in the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service Workshop Service Evolution and User Uptake to be held in Brussels, September 7-8, 2015. It will also be present at the ICES Annual Science Conference (21–25 September 2015, Copenhagen) and at the Euromarine Foresight Symposium "Future Coast – Europe" (5–7 October 2015, Berlin).

  • The preparations for the EMODnet Open Conference (20/10/2015) and Partner Jamboree 21-23/10/2015) have continued during this period. These events will provide an opportunity for stakeholders and partners from different thematic groups to meet each other, discover new insights and work together on common problems. Breakout sessions to encourage discussion around EMODnet topics have been planned and a call for posters has been launched. More information can be found on http://www.emodnet.eu/conference.

More information

More detailed information and the bi-monthly progress reports of each thematic lot can be found attached to this post and on the EMODnet thematic portals: