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EMODnet Secretariat progress update - November 2014

This update is largely based on the bi-monthly reports of the thematic lots covering the months September-October 2014 supplemented with updates from the Secretariat.

Current progress highlights

General highlights and achievements from the thematic lots include

  • Raising the visibility of EMODnet with stakeholders, all thematic lots participated in a joint EMODnet event on the eve of the EurOCEAN2014 Conference in Rome on 6 October 2014 (https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3656); EMODnet was also well represented at other major conferences including the Seatech week in Brest (13-17 October 2014) and the 7th EuroGOOS Conference in Lisbon on 28-30 October (http://eurogoos2014.hidrografico.pt/) with participants from the Secretariat as well as from EMODnet Mediterranean, Bathymetry, Physics and Human Activities.

  • The Central Portal released a demonstration version of its first use case: a demo Query Tool to retrieve, for a given selection of geographic coordinates, values for different parameters (selected by user) accessed from different EMODnet thematic portals. The tool is available on the Central Portal (http://www.emodnet.eu/dataservices/) and will be elaborated in the future to include more parameters and functionality.

  • EMODnet communication via social media is starting to pay off. With support from the VLIZ central portal team and the Steering Committee, in less than a year since the start of the Secretariat more than 250 people and organisations are following the general EMODnet account on twitter (https://twitter.com/EMODnet) which now holds more than 85 tweets on marine data related subjects and EMODnet activities. The EMODnet Facebook-page (https://www.facebook.com/EMODnet) also picks up the twitter messages and received interest from more than 90 users to date. The EMODnet LinkedIn page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/emodnet) currently attracts less interest with about 40 followers and requires more active follow up. As a result, the EMODnet Central Portal (www.emodnet.eu) is also receiving increasing attention, reaching about 1700 of unique visitors in October 2014, the highest number since its release in September 2014.

Specific progress and achievements include

  • At the end of October, the total number of CDI (Common Data Index) entries on EMODnet Bathymetry portal for bathymetric datasets in European waters reached 7860 entries (increase of 135 entries since end of August) with 369 being unrestricted, while all others require negotiation with the data holders. The EMODnet Bathymetry portal has been considerably improved in response to the recommendations from users from the EMODnet Secretariat user-evaluation. Work is ongoing to address structural problems with the first compilation of the new higher resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) which is envisaged to be launched by mid-December 2014. The 1st Annual Interim Report (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3652) provides an overview of the achievements and challenges in the first year of EMODnet Bathymetry phase II.

  • EMODnet Geology organised its first year project meeting in Sliema, Malta on September 30-October 1 in 2014, marking the end of a very productive first year. The Sliema Meeting was hosted by the Continental Shelf Department of the Maltese Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure and was opened by Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Joe Mizzi. Notable progress during the reporting period includes major updates in assembling sea-bed geology and minerals information. An exercise revealed that gaps in sea-bed substrate data represent about 40 % of the MSFD area with notable variation between data coverage and the mapping scales between the sea areas, with in total about 20 % of the MSFD seas mapped at 1:250 000 or more detailed scale. EMODnet Geology submitted its 1st Annual Interim Report in October 2014 with an overview of the achievements and challenges in the first year of EMODnet Geology in phase II (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3681).

  • EMODnet Seabed Habitats provided a clear overview of the major achievements of the project in year one of the current Phase II in its 1st Annual Interim Report (https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3664). In the last few months, three contractual broad-scale habitat maps were uploaded to the portal covering the Adriatic Sea, Macaronesia, Biscaye and Iberian. To improve communication to stakeholders, JNCC developed and disseminated a brochure called “EUSeaMap, a broad-scale physical habitat map for European seas”.

  • EMODnet Chemistry saw the total number of CDIs for chemistry data sets relevant for European waters decrease from 603252 to 600122 due to a revision of data sets managed by one of the data providers, including an aggregation of data resulting in less CDIs. Of these 501343 are unrestricted (unrestricted and SeaDataNet license), while others (98779) require (possible) negotiation due to restrictions. At the same time, EMODnet Chemistry developed two new product types defined as Dynamic Time Series plots and Dynamic Station maps which will be made available for visualisation and downloading on the OceanBrowser viewing and Sextant Discovery services before the end of 2014. The team has made good progress on defining the methodology for the Data Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) of Diva products (description available on the portal for download http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/paris_03_09_2014.html). EMODnet Chemistry also set up of the environments for Cloud hosting by Cineca, a non-profit Consortium made up of 69 Italian universities, and 3 Institutions, including OGS and CNR.

  • EMODnet Biology added 43 new datasets to the pool of data available through its portal. Significant progress was also made by creation of data products for all species groups in North Sea and North-East Atlantic; temporal animations are available online at www.emodnet-biology.eu. Marine biological trait ontology was published on a semantic Wiki to manage the vocabularies on the functional trait names and definitions (see http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/Traits:Marine_species_traits). Moreover, EMODnet Biology has taken a pro-active approach to liase with users requiring input to develop MSFD indicators, notably by interacting with experts from EEA, OSPAR-COBAM and HELCOM-CORESET to allow better focus of EMODnet Biology outputs towards MSFD reporting needs. At the organisational level, EMODnet Biology held its second general meeting at University of Azores (IMAR) and assigned a new lead of WP5 on Data archaeology (Hellenic Centre for Marine Research) to replace Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas (IBSS) which had to withdraw from the project for administrative reasons. EMODnet Biology also submitted its 1st Annual Interim Report (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3652) with an overview of the achievements and challenges in the first year of EMODnet Biology in phase II.

  • EMODnet Physics released an update of its WFS service following requests from EMSA and tested the bidirectional machine-to-machine interoperability with the Ocean Data Portal (ODP). Representatives from the thematic lot participated a range of meetings to strengthen collaboration with partners and external stakeholders including the National Oceanographic Data Centers (NODCs) network at the SeaDataNet Annual meeting, EurOcean2014, the 7th EuroGOOS Conference and co-organization of the HFRadar side meeting.

  • EMODnet Human Activities portal completed the MapServer update which as announced in the previous progress report. The URL http://www.emodnet-humanactivities.eu/ will be switched to this new web server by the end of November 2015. WFS and WMS services for machine to machine communication are being tested and should be available to users around the end of November. New datasets (not included in the contract) are being prepared on ‘hydrocarbon licence blocks’, ‘fish catches by FAO statistical area’, ‘fish landings by port’, and ‘artificial reefs’. Based on DG MARE’s and other stakeholders’ comments, as well as the consortium user experiences, a list of improvements to the portal has been prepared, together with a plan for their implementation.

EMODnet sea-basin checkpoints

  • Mediterranean sea-basin checkpoint published its "Literature Survey" Report (D1.3) which summarizes the first substantial attempt to classify the input data sets existing at the Mediterranean Sea level, explaining a methodological framework for the nomenclature, metadata collection and the result statistical analysis (September 2014). It can be downloaded from the Maritime Forum at the following link: https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3646. The website (www.emodnet-mediterranean.eu) has been further upgraded with regards to the external links sections and includes release of the first EMODnet MedSea Newsletter. Two EMODNET Oil Platform Leak Bulletins have been released, upon request from the Commission and Secretariat, containing the forecast/scenario information on the fate and transport of oil leaks emanating from two different locations (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3668). The Checkpoints representatives contributed to the 22nd MODEG meeting in Brussels presenting the MedSea activities (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3605) and the EMODnet EUOCEANS pre-event in Rome (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3656).

  • North sea-basin checkpoint delivered its "Literature Survey" Report in August 2014 as part of the first Data Quality Report providing a review of the web-based resources available containing feedback on data and data gaps for the North Sea basin. The report which is available for download on the Maritime Forum (https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3601) highlighted the challenges in identifying and accessing information on data quality and summarised feedback from a range of documentary sources. A practical test of the oil platform leak challenge, launched by DG MARE, has been successfully completed and reported upon (see https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3666). A proposed design for the website has been established, together with a solution for presenting the results of the challenges via the central portal website. EMODNET central portal content management system is being tweaked to publish the NSCP project by December 2014.

Recent meetings and events

  • EMODnet Secretariat organised a dedicated Pre-event linked to the EurOCEAN2014 Conference – Connection people with data (Rome, 6 October 2014) attended by more than 50 registered participants. Agenda and presentations available here:https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3656.

  • Representatives EMODnet participated a range of other external meetings, including the Search week in Brest (13-17 Ocotber 2014) and the 7th EuroGOOS Conference in Lisbon on 28-30 October (http://eurogoos2014.hidrografico.pt/) with participants from the Secretariat as well as from EMODnet Mediterranean, Bathymetry, Physics and Human Activities.

Upcoming EMODnet meetings and events:

  • The 3nd EMODnet Steering Committee Meeting will take place on December 2014 (Brussels, Borschette). The meeting will address among others the central portal development, EMODnet progress indicators, Secretariat user-survey recommendations and first year deliverables of all lots (see agenda here: https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/3660).

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:

Related links

Bi-monthly_report_Bathymetry-No5-V1.pdf
EMODnet-Geology Bi-monthly report September-October 2014.pdf
20141103_Seabed Habitats report.pdf
EMODNET2Chemistry_8thBi-monthlyreport_21112014JBC.pdf
Bi-monthly report_templatev_09_10_2014_biology.pdf
EMODnetPhysics.Report_7_SpetemberOctober2014.pdf
Human Activities - 6th Progress report.pdf