Search

17 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables.-- Data Availability Statement: The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: Data from the EGIM, EMSO-Canarias (ESTOC), 2020. SEANOE. https://doi.org/10.17882/83639, https://doi.org/10.17882/83643, https://doi.org/10.17882/83646, https://doi.org/10.17882/83642, and https://doi.org/10.17882/83645. Data from the EGIM, EMSO-Azores observatory, 2017-2018. SEANOE. https://doi.org/10.17882/56665, https://doi.org/10.17882/56528, https://doi.org/10.17882/56501, https://doi.org/10.17882/56525, https://doi.org/10.17882/56626, https://doi.org/10.17882/57005, https://doi.org/10.17882/69867, and https://doi.org/10.17882/69976. Annotated images capturing fish abundances during the first deployment of the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM) at the OBSEA cabled observatory from December 2016 to April 2017. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.936693. Data collected during the first deployment of the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM) at the OBSEA cabled observatory from December, 2016 to April, 2017. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.883072, 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)

American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, 9-13 December 2019, San Francisco, The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), which aims to explore the oceans, to gain a better understanding of phenomena happening within and below them, and to explain the critical role that these phenomena play in the broader Earth systems. Within the scope of its activities, EMSO ERIC, throughout its 11 Regional Facilities placed at key sites around Europe, supports the development of advanced marine technologies for successful implementation of key European policy goals such as achieving Good Environmental Status (GES) under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), along with other initiatives such as the Copernicus Marine Service. In this respect efforts are being made to identify and promote Best Practices for the design and operations of subsea observatories, to foster the implementation of interoperable solutions between Regional Facilities and to develop new and innovative technologies to measure the Essential Ocean Variables (EOV) at all depths, addressing meanwhile issues such as low-power, miniaturization, modularity, interoperability and low-cost. Recently, the EMSO Generic Instrumental Module (EGIM) has been developed to acquire a wide range of ocean parameters, including temperature, conductivity, pressure, dissolved O2, turbidity, ocean currents, and passive acoustics, in a long-term consistent, accurate and comparable manner from disciplines such as biology, geology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and computer science, from polar to subtropical environments, through the water column down to the deep sea.Cooperation and co-investment with industries are therefore significant for EMSO ERIC. Sensor manufacturer and observatory industries can benefit from EMSO ERIC collaboration, but also other industry sectors such as oil and gas industry, deep-sea mining, fisheries and renewables. Research and development in the field of maritime sensing technologies in Europe represent significant potential for further growth in this sector and co-creation and co-development of research should be a pre-requisite, ensuring that the ultimate potential users of the technology are involved in the design of the projects from the out

The EGIM (EMSO Generic Instrument Module ) is designed to consistently and continuously measure parameters of interest for most major science areas covered by EMSO. This research infrastructure provides accurate records on marine environmental changes from distributed regional nodes around Europe. The system can deliver data that can support the Global Ocean Observing System –Essential Ocean Variables concept, as well as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive towards evaluating environmentalstatus. The EGIM is flexible for adaptation according to site and disciplinespecific requirements. Inter - operability and capacity of future evolution of the system are key aspects of the modularity. The EGIM is able to operate on any EMSO node type: mooring line, sea bed station, cabled or non - cabled and surface buoy to monitor environmental parameters over a wide depth range. Operating modes, power requirements, mechanical design can adapt to the various EMSO node configurations. In addition to sensors already included in the EGIM prototype (temperature, conductivity, pressure, dissolved Oxygen, Turbidity, currents and passive acoustics) the EGIMcan host up to five additional sensors such as chl -a, pCO 2, pH, seismic and photographic/video images ornew sensors. The EGIM provides all the sensor hosting services required ,for instance power distribution, positioning , and protection against bio -fouling . Within EMSO , the EGIM aimsto have a number of ocean locations where the same set of core variables are measured homogeneously: using the same hardware, same sensor references, same qualification methods, same calibration methods, same data format and access and the same maintenance procedures. It’s compact and modular nature allows for flexible deploymentscenarios that include being able to accommodate new instruments such for Essential Ocean Variables and other needs as theirtechnology readiness levels improve.