Recommendations for Sustainable Ocean Observation and Management
JERICO-S3 participates as one of ten Horizon 2020-supported Blue Growth EU projects to form the strong cluster ‘Nourishing Blue Economy and Sharing Ocean Knowledge’. The 10 innovative projects aim to build ocean observation systems that provide input for evidence-based management of the ocean and the Blue Economy.
Led by the EuroSea project, the group published a joint policy brief listing 5 key recommendations for sustainable ocean observation and management. The cooperation is supported by the EU Horizon Results Booster and enables the group to achieve a higher societal impact. The policy brief was presented to the European Commission on 15 October 2021.
The Ocean covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and plays a critical role in providing the air we breathe and the freshwater we drink. The ocean makes our planet habitable as a primary controller of the global climate system. The Ocean is the pathway for 90% of global trade and provides a wealth of resources supporting human livelihoods, with enormous economic impact. Investors are increasingly looking towards the ocean for economic opportunities.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projections suggest that the Blue Economy, evaluated as 2.5% of the world economic value of goods and services produced, is expanding rapidly. By 2030, ocean industries have the potential to double in size (seabed mining, shipping, fishing, tourism, renewable energy systems and aquaculture will intensify). Ocean industries are outperforming the global economy as a whole and making an important contribution to Blue Growth and employment.
To address the future challenges of sustainable ocean development there is a need to develop a framework for a more in-depth understanding of marine ecosystems. Ocean observations must be reliable, timely and fit-for-purpose and link to the design and implementation of evidence-based management decisions.
By joining forces, the 10 projects jointly strive to achieve goals set out in the EU Green Deal, the Paris Agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the United Nations 2021-2030 Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Ocean Development.
The 5 key policy recommendations are:
1. Create a European Policy Framework for Scientific Ocean Observations Long-term Funding – The need to better coordinate and support ocean observing and ocean information delivery efforts across Europe. In response to this, continued observations and improved biological understanding are both needed to assess oceanographic change and its ecological implications. This needs to be seen as research infrastructure, which requires more sustainable and adequate funding to support a growing blue economy through monitoring efforts.
2. Support the Professionalisation of the Next Generation of ‘Blue Staff’ – The Blue Digital Transformation requires new skills and competencies, educational programs and knowledge, which will increase employability in the marine sector, both in academia and industry sectors, while the sector better exploits the value of the ocean in a sustainable way.
3. Transform Data into Knowledge by Investing in IT Observations – Thanks to the combination of different technologies, which collect different kinds of data (e.g. microbiome, plastics, ocean circulation), it will be possible to fill in different gaps in knowledge and understanding of the Blue Sector dynamics in terms of ecology, biodiversity, sensitivity to climate change and the potential for sustainable exploitation of ocean resources.
4. Define Global Standards and Interoperability Practices – The oceanographic community is already developing data interoperability but a more formalised standard framework is required. To achieve this, a change in culture is the only way to propagate the use of standards and best practices.
5. Strengthening Citizen Science for Policy, Equitable Access, Democratisation and Critical Data Contributions – By actively supporting citizen science initiatives, policymakers are able to open up and democratise marine observation science, thus, co-creating a new type of self-driven, sustainable and cost-efficient observatory concept. It is recommended that policymakers should join efforts to create a new generation of evidence-based national, European and transcontinental (All Atlantic) public policies.
These projects have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 (H2020) Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreements: EuroSea 862626; AtlantECO 862923; Blue-Cloud 862409; EU-Atlas 678760; Eurofleets+ 824077; iAtlantic 818123; Jerico-S3 871153; Mission Atlantic 862428; Nautilos 101000825; ODYSSEA 727277.
