The implementation of submarine sensors at regional scale has been considered within the ESFRI Roadmap as a European strategic infrastructure. In this sense European Union has funded projects as ESONET and EMSO that are initiatives to establish a network of long-term deep sea observatories. Within this framework, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation has made an effort, supporting and funding several projects concerning marine platforms at submarine and coastal areas to accomplish these technological challenges. The OBSEA submarine platform was deployed by the BO Sarmiento de Gamboa last 19th May, since then is working properly and only some adjustments have been needed. In this initial period the submarine laboratory OBSEA will be available for ESONET and EMSO communities for testing and developing new sensors, with the advantage of an easily reachable location and online checking through web page. ; Postprint (published version)
The implementation of submarine sensors at regional scale has been considered within the ESFRI Roadmap as a European strategic infrastructure. In this sense European Union has funded projects as ESONET and EMSO that are initiatives to establish a network of long-term deep sea observatories. Within this framework, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation has made an effort, supporting and funding several projects concerning marine platforms at submarine and coastal areas to accomplish these technological challenges. The OBSEA submarine platform was deployed by the BO Sarmiento de Gamboa last 19th May, since then is working properly and only some adjustments have been needed. In this initial period the submarine laboratory OBSEA will be available for ESONET and EMSO communities for testing and developing new sensors, with the advantage of an easily reachable location and online checking through web page. ; Postprint (published version)
The oceans are a fundamental source for climate balance, sustainability of resources and life on Earth, therefore society has a strong and pressing interest in maintaining and, where possible, restoring the health of the marine ecosystems. Effective, integrated ocean observation is key to suggesting actions to reduce anthropogenic impact from coastal to deep-sea environments and address the main challenges of the 21st century, which are summarized in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Blue Growth strategies. The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO), is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), with the aim of providing long-term observations via fixed-point ocean observatories in key environmental locations across European seas from the Arctic to the Black Sea. These may be supported by ship-based observations and autonomous systems such as gliders. In this paper, we present the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM), a deployment ready multi-sensor instrumentation module, designed to measure physical, biogeochemical, biological and ecosystem variables consistently, in a range of marine environments, over long periods of time. Here, we describe the system, features, configuration, operation and data management. We demonstrate, through a series of coastal and oceanic pilot experiments that the EGIM is a valuable standard ocean observation module, which can significantly improve the capacity of existing ocean observatories and provides the basis for new observatories. The diverse examples of use included the monitoring of fish activity response upon oceanographic variability, hydrothermal vent fluids and particle dispersion, passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and time series of environmental variation in the water column. With the EGIM available to all the EMSO Regional Facilities, EMSO will be reaching a milestone in standardization and interoperability, marking a key capability advancement in addressing issues of sustainability in resource and habitat management of the oceans. ; This work was funded by the project EMSODEV (Grant agreement No 676555) supported by DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission under the Research Infrastructures Programme of the H2020. EMSO-link EC project (Grant agreement No 731036) provided additional funding. Other projects which supported the work include Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017–2020, project BITER-LANDER PID2020- 114732RB-C32, iFADO (Innovation in the Framework of the Atlantic Deep Ocean, 2017–2021) EAPA_165/2016. The Spanish Government contributed through the "Severo Ochoa Centre Excellence" accreditation to ICM-CSIC (CEX2019-000928-S) and the Research Unit Tecnoterra (ICM-CSIC/UPC). UK colleagues were supported by Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science (CLASS) project supported by NERC National Capability funding (NE/R015953/1). ; Peer Reviewed ; Article signat per 33 autors/es: Nadine Lantéri; Henry A. Ruh; Andrew Gates; Enoc Martínez; Joaquin del Rio Fernandez; Jacopo Aguzzi; Mathilde Cannat; Eric Delory; Davide Embriaco; Robert Huber; Marjolaine Matabos;George Petihakis; Kieran Reilly; Jean-François Rolin; Mike van der Schaar; Michel André; Jérôme Blandin; Andrés Cianca; Marco Francescangeli; Oscar Garcia; Susan Hartman; Jean-Romain Lagadec; Julien Legrand; Paris Pagonis; Jaume Piera; Xabier Remirez; Daniel M. Toma; Giuditta Marinaro; Bertrand Moreau; Raul Santana; Hannah Wright; Juan José Dañobeitia; Paolo Favali ; Postprint (published version)
