Jean-Francois Rolin

Requirements and approaches for a more cost-efficient assessment of ocean waters and ecosystems, and fisheries management

Development of a new generation of multifunctional sensor systems is underway to address ocean monitoring challenges. These range from more precise monitoring of the marine environment to an improved management of fisheries and, among other things, address improved life cycle cost-efficiency. These advances will be achieved through innovations such as multiplatform integration, greater reliability through better antifouling management and greater sensor and data interoperability. Requirements for the sensors have been refined through surveys and discussions with science and industry users. This paper will describe these developments in the NeXOS project.

From ESONET multidisciplinary scientific community to EMSO novel European research infrastructure for ocean observation

Environmental and climate changes are crucial challenges for sustainable living because of their significant impact on the Earth system and the important consequences for natural resources. Oceans have a primary role in these changes as they regulate heat flux, greenhouse gases and climate whilst harboring many different life forms and resources. Understanding processes in the marine environment is of paramount importance for any prediction of short-, intermediate- and long-term global change.

Objectives of the NeXOS project in developing next generation ocean sensor systems for a more cost-efficient assessment of ocean waters and ecosystems, and fisheries management

The NeXOS project aims to develop new multifunctional sensor systems supporting a number of scientific, technical and societal objectives, ranging from more precise monitoring and modelling of the marine environment to an improved management of fisheries. Several sensors will be developed, based on optical and passive acoustics technologies, addressing key environmental descriptors identified by the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) for Good Environmental Status (GES). Two of the new sensors will also contribute to the European Union Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), with a focus on variables of interest to an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF). An objective is the improved cost-efficiency, from procurement to operations, via the implementation of several innovations, such as multiplatform integration, greater reliability through better antifouling management, greater sensor and data interoperability and the creation of market opportunities for European enterprises. Requirements will be further analysed for each new sensor system during the first phase of the project. Those will then be translated into engineering specifications, leading to the development phase. Sensors will then be tested, calibrated, integrated on several platform types, scientifically validated and demonstrated in the field. Translation to production and broad adoption are facilitated by participating industry. Overall, the paper presents an overview of the project objectives and plans for the next four years.

Single-frame multiparameter platforms for seafloor geophysical and environmental observations: projects and missions from GEOSTAR to ORION

The paper presents an overview of recent seafloor long-term single-frame multiparameter platform developed in the framework of the European Commission and Italian projects starting from the GEOSTAR prototype. The main features of the different systems are described as well as the sea missions that led to their validation. The ORION seafloor observatory network recently developed, based on the GEOSTAR-type platforms and engaged in a deep-sea mission at 3300 m w.d. in the Mediterranean Sea, is also described

Open-Sea Observatories: A New Technology to Bring the Pulse of the Sea to Human Awareness

Historically, observation in Marine Science was mainly based on in situ measurements made mainly over ship surveys and shore measurements. Unfortunately, ship surveys can only be episodic, and are constrained by weather and by the constant rise of ship-time cost. As the data provided by non-communicating moorings are stored in the measurement system, a ship intervention is needed to recover both the mooring and the data after several acquisition months. Further to the rather successful mediumand short-term deployment of these traditional devices, scientists have expected the development of long-term observations and permanent marine system-monitoring tools so as to gain more insight into the observed processes. By providing additional information, satellite technology can partly solve this gap between the reality and expectations. However, even though satellite images provide information over a large time frame (from minutes to years) and a wide range of spatial resolutions (from metres to thousands of kilometres), they only cover the upper layer of the sea. An Open-Sea Observatory is a complementary tool that allows one to make, in the water column and on the seafloor, long-term measurements of many environmental parameters and to acquire them in real-time, or near real-time. In addition to this real-time data transmission, these systems permit remote intervention by humans when needed, and thus can be considered as 2-way communicating devices. Because of these two characteristics, observatories are innovative systems that bring internet to the ocean and make the ocean reality visible to the human eye. According to our definition of an Open-Sea observatory, other very useful observation tools such as gliders, floats, repeated profiler transects, etc. will not be considered in this chapter to only focus on such ocean observatories. Observatory initiatives have been spreading worldwide since the 1990s. In Europe, several initiatives started twenty years ago so as to upgrade free-fall systems from the sea surface (the so-called “landers”) to make them 2-way communicating and to develop bottom

NeXOS, developing and evaluating a new generation of in-situ ocean observation systems

Many changes are occurring in the physical, chemistry and biology processes of the ocean. Understanding how these changes are driven is an element of the key environmental descriptors identified by the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) with the ultimate goal being to protect the resource base upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend. The Directive furthers the ecosystem approach to the management of human activities having an impact on the marine environment, integrating the concepts of environmental protection and sustainable use. To meet these goals, in-situ data are necessary for comprehensive modeling and forecasting of ocean dynamics. Yet, collection of in-situ observations is inherently challenging from the perspective of both time and resources. This paper addresses a new generation of acoustic, optical and fishery in-situ sensors that address these challenges. These sensor systems are multifunctional (single sensor systems addressing several phenomena), can be deployed on a large majority of ocean monitoring systems from surface to the seafloor, and operate for long periods with less maintenance. In addition, at the system and user interface level, the publication of data uses processes and formats conforming to OGC SWE standards and consistent with global ocean observing initiatives and ocean modeling portals such as Copernicus marine environment monitoring services. During the last three years, NeXOS has achieved a number of milestones, providing ten new sensors along with important transverse capabilities for anti-fouling and data management. The optical sensors include monitoring of marine contaminants such as hydrocarbons and components of the carbon cycle. New sensor systems for passive acoustic measurements with extended dynamic range include internal post-processing of acoustic information to reduce communication loads. Two additional sensors (chlorophyll-a and oxygen) have been added to the RECOPESCA system to support an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) for improving measurement of stock-relevant parameters, such as fluorescence (proxy of chlorophyll-a) as well as physical parameters (T, S, Depth) and fish species. Interface with the sensors is through a miniaturized smart sensor interface common to all new NeXOS sensor systems and a PUCK implementation facilitates streamlined platform interfaces. A common toolset for web-enabled and reconfigurable downstream services supports marine databases and data facilitators, from SeaDataNet to GOOS and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). This paper provides description of sensors and their capabilities along with validation testing.

The EMSO-ERIC Pan-European Consortium: data benefits and lessons learned as the legal entity forms

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) provides power, communications, sensors, and data infrastructure for continuous, high-resolution, (near-)real-time, interactive ocean observations across a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary range of research areas including biology, geology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and computer science, from polar to subtropical environments, through the water column down to the abyss. Eleven deep-sea and four shallow nodes span from the Arctic through the Atlantic and Mediterranean, to the Black Sea. Coordination among the consortium nodes is being strengthened through the EMSOdev project (H2020), which will produce the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM). Early installations are now being upgraded, for example, at the Ligurian, Ionian, Azores, and Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) nodes. Significant findings have been flowing in over the years; for example, high-frequency surface and subsurface water-column measurements of the PAP node show an increase in seawater pCO2 (from 339 μatm in 2003 to 353 μatm in 2011) with little variability in the mean air-sea CO2 flux. In the Central Eastern Atlantic, the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands open-ocean canary node (aka ESTOC station) has a long-standing time series on water column physical, biogeochemical, and acidification processes that have contributed to the assessment efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). EMSO not only brings together countries and disciplines but also allows the pooling of resources and coordination to assemble harmonized data into a comprehensive regional ocean picture, which will then be made available to researchers and stakeholders worldwide on an open and interoperable access basis.

Real‐time acoustic monitoring of the deep‐ocean environment

ESONET is a European Network of Excellence (NoE) associating 50 partners (research centres, universities, industrials and SMEs) from 14 countries: France, Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, and Turkey. More than 300 scientists and engineers will participate to its activities. The aim of the ESONET NoE is the lasting integration of European research on deep‐sea multidisciplinary observatories. ESONET is particularly sensitive on the effects of noise on marine organisms. Because our knowledge is still quite limited, ESONET is developing a Demonstration Mission, called LIDO, Listening to the Deep‐Ocean Environment, a research program that will help establishing a scientific base to allow (1) the real‐time automatic identification and classification of nonbiological and biological sounds, (2) the monitoring of marine organisms and population dynamics, (3) the assessment and control of the long term effects of anthropogenic sources on marin...

NeXOS contribution to the adaptation of system analysis engineering tools for mature and reliable ocean sensors

Oceanography was started by Navy engineers and the references of readiness and functional specifications were military. Since the end of the 80s, a new generation of instruments was able to promote more cost-efficient technical solutions. They cover now the needs of scientific ocean research as well as operational oceanography and environmental monitoring or assessment of the coastal areas. The ambition in the EC FP7 NeXOS project is to proceed in this direction in order to improve the temporal and spatial coverage, resolution and quality of marine observations. The Technology Readiness Levels are now successfully used for oceanographic equipments. NeXOS promotes a specific approach for the sensors themselves and for sensor systems. It happens to be very useful to detect weak points both at the beginning of the development and at high level of maturity. Some criteria are more often weak in the ocean sensor development world such as: follow-up of cost drivers at an early stage of the design, exact scope of the market, safety, dependence on few component providers, etc. The practice of functional analysis of sensor systems shows also a need to focus on specific aspects. Marine environment constraints are known to be critical. The designer has to take into account surrounding functions dealing with data availability, interoperability, modularity, robustness which are in fact major objectives of the NeXOS project. Reliability analysis in the context of marine sensor systems is in many cases a key issue. Some sensors will be deployed for long term autonomous missions, some of them, for instance on-board Argo Floats, will never be recovered. It then needs to be very performed with the rather small amount of failure rated available. The fear events are not only coming from the operations at sea but also from several steps of the data dissemination process: metrology, associated metadata, processing, etc. In order to achieve this goal, is necessary to consider several alternative configurations of the system design in such a way that functional specifications remain unchanged but enhance dependability. This is framed in the so-called reliability allocation problems [1], usually addressed by firstly obtaining Fault Tree models of the system and then performing cost-constrained optimization of whole system reliability. The most common criteria used to overcome reliability issues consist in apply redundancy on critical components to provide backup in case of failure of some component, use diversity (i.e. components from different manufacturers) in redundant parts so as to avoid common cause failures and employ physical dispersion (i.e in a redundant configuration, locate components in different parts of the system).

NeXOS development plans in ocean optics, acoustics and observing systems interoperability

A growing concern about the health of the world oceans resulting from multiple stressors as for instance effects of climate change and increasing offshore activities leads to the need of better observational tools and strategies. The objective of the NeXOS project is to serve those needs by developing new cost-effective, innovative and compact integrated multifunctional sensor systems for ocean optics, ocean passive acoustics, and an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF), which can be deployed from mobile and fixed ocean observing platforms, as well as to develop downstream services for the Global Ocean Observing System, Good Environmental Status of European marine waters and the Common Fisheries Policy.