Context

Various marine monitoring, observation and data collection networks have been set up for specific purposes or to demonstrate certain technological capabilities. Apart from the fact that they cover the seven layers of the environmental matrix (air, ice, seawater, fresh water, river beds and seabed, biology, human activities), there is no overview at the scale of sea basins of the existing gaps and of the adequacy of the data with the needs of the users. In addition, technological advances and new deployment opportunities, such as those represented by ORE farms, may make it easier or less costly to measure certain parameters. However, this possibility has not been fully exploited.

Objectives

To assess monitoring systems in the Mediterranean on the basis of the data needs of seven end-use applications: offshore wind farms siting, marine protected areas, oil platform leaks, climate and coastal protection, fisheries management, marine environment, river inputs.

Scientific and technical contents

• Bibliographic summary of the various European programmes dealing with the marine environment, specifying data sources, primary and intermediate producers
• Production of indicators of the quality of current marine data systems as well as specific results by end application
• Evaluation of the quality of the monitoring system and identification of synergies and gaps with regard to end-use applications
• Development of a portal containing all project results and determining whether the current observation infrastructure is as efficient as possible and meets the needs of public and private users

Partners and funding

This project was led by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia.

The total project budget was €1,000K.
This project received funding from EMODnet European network.

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