ALBERT

Description: The European Ocean Observing and Forecasting System (EOOFS) plays a pivotal role in understanding, monitoring, forecasting, and managing the complex dynamics and resources of Europe's Seas. It serves as a critical interdisciplinary system for addressing a myriad of challenges, from climate change impacts to marine resources management. However, to ensure its continued effectiveness, it is essential to identify and address the gaps within this system and provide actionable recommendations for improvements at short- and long-term. Therefore, this document serves as a baseline that can guide the funders and supporters of the EOOFS, as well as the various stakeholders directly or indirectly related to the EOOFS, towards the gaps that hinder better monitoring and prediction of various ocean phenomena, along the ocean observing value chain. The main identified gaps are related to spatial and temporal coverage of data and products of the EOOFS, the data integration and accessibility by various types of users, the uncertainties of projections, the technological challenges, as well as to the engagement of various actors and the communication of results and services to them. The main recommendations to be taken into consideration for addressing all highlighted gaps are detailed in the report for every phenomenon and component of the ocean value chain. These recommendations are not provided just to satisfy the academic interest of the EOOFS community, however, they may have profound implications for multiple sectors and the society as a whole, if taken into consideration. This is due to the fact that the EOOFS is essential for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, in improving the efficiency of the marine resources’ management, in enhancing the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems as well as coastal cities and infrastructures against disasters and extreme events, for shipping and navigation safety, and for the scientific advancements and innovations of Europe in the field of marine science that serves the society. We propose a scoring approach that can evaluate the EOOFS readiness level (RL) in monitoring ocean phenomena, on a regular basis and in a systematic way. We have demonstrated the usefulness of this approach by implementing it based on our assessment and the feedback of the EOOFS community. The main results clearly show that the EOOFS has “Fitness for Purpose” readiness levels (RL 7) in the three main pillars of the value chain (Input, Process, and Output) only for one ocean phenomenon, while 83% of ocean phenomena have RLs varying from 1 (Idea) to 4 (Trial). A deeper analysis of the scoring results reflects that the EOOFS major gaps are predominantly concentrated in two of its three pillars: the coordination and observational elements (Process) and data management and information products (Output) (Figure 1). In a changing world that is affecting all aspects of European lives, it is crucial to significantly invest and support the EOOFS to better monitor and accurately predict the European Seas, and provide sustained services that can help businesses and improve the resilience of communities and resources.

Description: The 4th Evolving and Sustaining Ocean Best Practices Workshop was held online during the period 17-30 September 2020, addressing community needs for advanced method development and implementation in ocean observations, data management and application. The proceedings for the subject workshop are provided in 2 volumes. Volume 1 addresses the meeting overview, and Volume 2 - Annexes includes the complete Working Group reports.

Description: Report on ASV-Network structure and roadmap

Description: Report on ASV-Network structure and roadmap Revised edition

Description: Currently, the ocean carbon sink annually removes about a third of anthropogenic fossil fuel and industrial CO2 emissions, reducing therefore climate change damages and CO2 abatement costs. While the land sinks have entered climate policies, the ocean sink has not—for good reasons since the former stores carbon within the boundaries of a state while the ocean removes carbon from the atmosphere rather in its property as a global common. However, the question remains what is the value of the ocean carbon sink and should it be differently attributed when comparing a coastal state with a large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) compared to landlocked state. Here, we demonstrate different approaches to value the ocean sink, comparing a climate-change damage-based approach with an abatement, market-based approach. We use a high-resolution carbon flux dataset (0.25x0.25 degree) to estimate the ocean carbon sink and source in coastal areas. We assign a net sink of 1.72 GtC proportional to countries with negative carbon fluxes in their EEZ. In our calculation the annual value of the global ocean sink ranges from 61.19 B USD (Std 31.80), equivalent to the 2021 GDP of Slovenia, to 1433 B USD (Std 94.30), equivalent to the 2021 GDP of Spain (World Bank data) for the abatement cost-based assessment approach (assuming full emission trading and low ambition levels in the national determined contribution) and for the climate-change damage-based assessment approach relying on an upper value of the social cost of carbon in our investigation. By breaking down the carbon sink by nations EEZ we estimate which countries are the largest donors of ocean carbon wealth and which countries would be affected the most if a weakening of the ocean sink would need to be compensated by higher emission reduction levels.

Description: The EuroSea project is improving the coordination of the European ocean observing and forecasting system to strengthen its capability of tacking the societal challenges related to ocean health, climate change, mitigation of ocean-related natural hazards, and the sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystem services in the Blue Economy. The scientific excellence of the project is based on its better integration, assimilation, coordination and governance of methods, practices, and instruments to collect fit-for-purpose ocean data and the development of innovative tools and solutions to manage some natural coastal risks and support more efficiently fisheries and aquaculture. The societal impact of the research and innovation activities carried out by the EuroSea consortium is enabled through the responsible research and innovation (RRI) policy concept implemented throughout the project progress development and, in particular, in the demonstrators work packages and in those activities focused on communication, dissemination, exploitation and legacy. This report summarizes how the six articulations of the RRI approach were applied so far in the EuroSea project. It also offers some recommendations to boost the societal benefits provided by inclusivity, equality, ethics, transparency and collaborative co-design and co-creation in the research and innovation process applied to ocean observing. Now, and even more in the future, it is necessary to multiply the opportunities to share knowledge and expertise among all transdisciplinary actors to be engaged in improving the European and global ocean observing and forecasting. Moreover, the emerging critical problems affecting the ocean require an increased public involvement through open access to ocean information, effective communication and dissemination of research findings, more diffuse ocean literacy and collective mobilisation. Only these factors seem to be able to establish the global common responsibility necessary to enhance the ocean sustainability, as advocated by the UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development supporting the achievement of the SDG 14 in the UN Agenda 2030.

Description: This report provides recommendations to foster collaboration and cooperation between technologies and disciplines and for implementing truly integrated ocean observing systems. Based on an intensive literature review and a careful examination of different examples of integration in different fields, this work identifies the issues and barriers that must be addressed, and proposes a vision for a real implementation of this ocean integration ambition. This work is a contribution to the implementation of EOOS, a much-needed step forward in Europe, following the international guidance of GOOS.

Description: The EuroSea project has been running for 4 years by the writing of this report, and this report covers months 33-48 of the action at a time when most tasks are completed and deliverables submitted. However, a few items still need to be finalized as we have experienced delays for a few items, mostly due to COVID, or Brexit, but we expect all of those to be solved before the end of the project by the end of 2023. The progress of the WPs is summarized below, and is described in more detail in the main part of this report. As an innovation action, EuroSea is keeping a close eye on creating impact and on creating services and products that will last past the lifetime of the project. Therefore, we would like to emphasis the registry of impacts that is published on the EuroSea website1. These about 100 areas illustrate the impact that EuroSea has had on improving the European ocean observing and forecasting system. EuroSea has produced a number of targeted services and products for ocean health, operational services and climate, that are tested and used by the stakeholders.

Description: Report about progress across all WPs and tasks during project month 15-30, going to be used by ISTAB for evaluation of project status and progress

Description: This first progress report summarises the progress in the project, the individual work packages and tasks in the first 14 months of the project. Reporting period: 1 Nov 2019 – 31 Dec 2020