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The French coast of the Eastern English Channel (ECC) is classified as potential eutrophication zone by the Paris and Oslo Convention (OSPAR), and as moderate to poor according to phytoplankton quality element of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Indeed, the French part of the EEC is regularly affected by Phaeocystis globosa bloom events, which have detrimental effects on the marine ecosystem, economy as well as public health. Since phytoplankton is an important indicator of water quality, the MAREL Carnot oceanographic multi-sensor station was installed in the Eastern English Channel at the Carnot wall in Boulogne sur Mer in 2004 to monitor water quality and phytoplankton in order to complement results from existing more conventional low resolution monitoring programs, with high frequency data (sampling every 20 minutes). The purpose of this paper is to introduce the MAREL Carnot dataset and show how it can be used for several research objectives. MAREL Carnot collects high frequency, multi-parameter observations from surface water, as well as meteorological measurements, and send data almost immediately to an inshore data center. In this paper, we present several physiochemical and biological parameters measured by this station. In addition, we demonstrated, based on previous research activities, that the MAREL Carnot dataset is useful for evaluating environmental or ecological statuses, marine phytoplankton ecology, physical oceanography, turbulence, as well as public policy. Most importantly, we showed its contribution to Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and other regional or universal conventions.

The data centre for French coastal operational oceanography (CDOCO) has been developed in the frame of PREVIMER, the coastal operational system for the French marine environment. The main objective of a coastal oceanography data centre is to provide in a timely fashion the data needed by modellers for assimilation, forcing and validation purposes. The goals of this data centre are: •� to provide operational services to the actors and users of coastal operational oceanography, •� to develop partnerships with the data producers and the data users, •� to develop the operational services for data collection, quality checks, archiving and distribution. The data are received as much as possible in real time or near real time and the data centre delivers it to the modelling processes for several daily runs. In order to feed the models, the data centre collects: •� in situ oceanographic measurements, •� meteorological data (wind, temperature, atmospheric pressure, rainfalls, radiation)