EMODnet progress overview

Common progress highlights

Most of the summer period was dedicated to the preparation and organisation of the second edition of the EMODnet Open Sea Lab Hackathon (OSLII), in collaboration with VLIZ, imec, CMEMS and ICES. With a diverse crowd of 70 participants and 16 competing teams from 19 different countries, the OSLII was a big success. A coach from every thematic lot was present at the event to provide support to the teams. In August 2019 in time for the event, the Secretariat had updated the EMODnet Data and Data Product portfolio of which printed copies were available to the teams. This update involved input and interaction between the EMODnet Secretariat and all portal Coordinators and was very timely to showcase the latest EMODnet data and data products at the OSLII. The updated version is available online on the Central Portal website for viewing and downloading.

All EMODnet data portals have started a new two year cycle with the last ones taking off in September 2019.

During the summer period, the EMODnet Secretariat, DG MARE and EASME revised the templates for the quarterly progress report and updated the accompanying progress indicators to optimize the reporting process, ready for the Q3 2019 reporting. This included the automization of the collection of user statistics (used for some progress indicators). Other progress indicators were simplified, combined or reorganised. This required some portals to adapt to the updated way of reporting resulting in some difficulties in reporting on trends. Both documents are living documents and are expected to be further fine-tuned and adapted in the near future based on the reporting process and feedback from the thematic portals on the ease of the use of these new templates.

Specific progress and achievements of thematic groups

Data providers of EMODnet Bathymetry were asked to review their existing CDI entries for improving and completing the Quality Index information. The portal asked basin coordinators to investigate the current DTM (v2018) and identify remaining artefacts. In parallel, improvements to the GLOBE software are underway. Finally, a major upgrade of the CDI Data Discovery & Access service took place, resulting in improvements in functionality and performance.
EMODnet Biology registered on the FAIR sharing website and other portals were invited at the 11^th EMODnet Steering Committee to also follow this. In the reporting period, 22 new datasets were harvested, accounting for 238,846 new occurrence records. A document of recommendations was drafted identifying priorities for several of EMODnet Biology’s WPs for the coming months. EMODnet Biology Coordinator VLIZ was heavily involved in the preparations of the second edition of the EMODnet Open Sea Lab (OSLII), and developed in collaboration with the Secretariat the OpenSeaLab data access page giving a clear overview of all the possible ways to access EMODnet data and products.
During the reporting period, the EMODnet Chemistry partnership remained active and populated the portal with new data especially in the Antifoulants subtheme. New marine litter data from the EEA were managed, completed with metadata and ingested into EMODnet Chemistry’s Beach litter database with a new product on marine litter released in Spring 2019. Furthermore, EMODnet Chemistry sustained interactions with several stakeholders (i.e. dialogue with EEA and CMEMS, and data support to JRC).
EMODnet Geology released six new products in Spring 2019; a communication protocol was set up in close collaboration with the Secretariat. The portal coordinator met with the Seabed 2030 project by GEBCO and Nippon Foundation at the OceanObs19 Conference in September to discuss measures to add a geological component to the agenda of ocean observations in the next decade. The seafloor mappers could successfully add the topic ‘seafloor’ to the final statement of the global ocean observing community, which is to be used as advice in the future and to be communicated to the UN in relation to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
EMODnet Human Activities launched a new dataset on urban wastewater treatment, which was promoted in their blog in September. Efforts are currently being put into the identification of new data sources for cultural heritage. Building on the vessel density map release in March 2018, updated vessel density maps with 2018 data have been completed and will go live at the end of November 2019.
Over the summer period, EMODnet Physics focused on delivering its regular operational service, together with the inclusion and ingestion of data from the T-MED network and Saildrone network, in collaboration with EMODnet Data Ingestion. The portal was contacted by the Hazrunoff project who is using the portal’s river product to serve the institution of Augas de Galicia. The EMODnet Physics River Task team is working on making available more data for Hazrunoff’s flooding studies.
The EMODnet Seabed Habitats entered into a new two-year cycle with a new coordinator, Ifremer (France), who took over the hosting of the portal without any disruption. Their new contract started on the 25^th of September; hence it is expected to report on any new progress in the next quarterly report.

EMODnet data portals usage

User visit statistics

The Secretariat automatised the collecting process of user statistics (i.e. number of (unique) page views and average visit duration) for the following progress/monitoring indicators: Visibility & Analytics for web pages; Visibility & Analytics for web sections; and Average visit duration for web pages. The resulting graphs for each EMODnet portal as well as the Central portal can be viewed in the gallery below.

Statistics on usage of EMODnet portals

Number of data downloads: EMODnet Bathymetry and EMODnet Chemistry reported an 18% and 23.5% decrease respectively in the number of CDI downloads. The number of dataset downloads in EMODnet Human Activities varied depending on the topic: e.g. the portal reported an increase in the number of dataset downloads related to among others Ocean Energy Facilities test sites (+86%), and MSFD reporting units (+300%) and Exclusive Economic Zone (+78%) (Other forms of area management/designation). Decreases in dataset downloads were reported for among others Monthly first sales EUMOFA (-22%; Fisheries), State of bathing waters (-61%; Environment) and Dumped munitions (-41%; Waste).

Number of data product downloads: EMODnet Bathymetry reported a 24% decrease in the number of DTM tile downloads. For all of its downloadable products, EMODnet Chemistry reported an increase in the number of downloaded data product related files with percentages ranging between 176% and 3075%. The EMODnet Human Activities vessel density maps were downloaded less (-18%) compared to the previous period. The release of six new data products in Spring by EMODnet Geology resulted in a 330% increase in the downloads of products.

Central Portal: The Central Portal GeoViewer combines many EMODnet data and data products in one map viewer. Within the reporting period, there has been an 58.5% increase in the total number of map visualisations compared to the previous period.

Challenges to be addressed

No challenges were encountered by EMODnet Bathymetry and EMODnet Geology.
Three marine regions were missing from the reporting tool from EMODnet Biology, which was designed to generate a view of the available data. The IT colleagues are currently investigating the issue.
Since financial support was not guaranteed, the EEA did not mention EMODnet Chemistry as data platform for the collection of MSFD monitoring data during the last WISE SoE Data Call. In response, the portal highlighted that the new Call for Tender was opened by DG MARE.
DG MARE requested data on military areas, which are not easily available. The coordinator of EMODnet Bathymetry may facilitate contact between EMODnet Human Activities and Hydrographic Offices to discuss possibilities of ingesting these data.
The machine-to-machine services between EMODnet Physics and CMEMS In situ TAC were impacted by the major updates on the side of CMEMS INSTAC. More specifically, the EMODnet Physics near real-time data dissemination service and some of the platforms hosted by INSTAC still need to be reconnected.
All portals were required to report and address issues regarding GDPR, which have now been addressed, or have a plan for addressing issues in the coming months.

User feedback

All thematic portal operators can be contacted easily via a dedicated helpdesk. Some thematic portals have even set up a live chat, enabling them to help people instantly. Technical queries constitute the majority of the requests received by the individual portals.

Recent meetings and events

During the summer period, EMODnet Secretariat and partners were involved in several key meetings and events including:

The EMODnet Secretariat met with DG MARE and EASME on the 30^th of July for an EMODnet, European Atlas of the Seas (EAS) and EOOS evaluation meeting to discuss the progress and challenges of all three activities in the EMODnet workplan. Reflections were given on future priorities and the future workplan.
The 11^th EMODnet Steering Committee Meeting and 6^th EMODnet Technical Working Group Meeting took place back-to-back with the Open Sea Lab II in Ghent on the 2^nd and 3^rd of September respectively.
Together with ICES and VLIZ, EMODnet Secretariat successfully organised the second Open Sea Lab hackathon (4-6 September, Ghent, Belgium). About 70 enthusiastic participants attended the hackathon, guided by almost 30 coaches including technical representatives from EMODnet.

EMODnet was widely represented at the international OceanObs 2019 conference, which took place from 16 to 20 September in Honolulu (Hawai’i). Experts from EMODnet Secretariat, Bathymetry, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Physics and the Data Ingestion Service were present. EMODnet was showcased in an EMODnet Community White Paper, published in Frontiers journal in Marine Science in July 2019 and led by Dr. Martín Martín Míguez and multiple poster presentations on EMODnet, individual portals and the European Atlas of the Seas. This high presence of EMODnet Coordinators and key experts increased the communication of EMODnet to the international community of ocean observing, monitoring and data services communities and the contribution of EMODnet to international ocean best practices and to open source FAIR data.

Upcoming EMODnet meetings and events

EMODnet Secretariat showcased the EAS at the EU Aquarium congress in Nausicaá on the 15^th of October. Special focus was put on the Teacher’s corner.
The EAS was also showcased by the Secretariat in a workshop session at the Belgian Geographers Day (Ghent, Belgium) on 19 October.