1. EMODnet Chemistry Background, set-up, achievements and future By
Dick M.A. Schaap – Technical Coordinator
September 2016

2. European Marine Observation and Data Network
EU communication “MARINE KNOWLEDGE marine data and observation for smart and sustainable growth” promotes ‘capture once – use many times’
EU cost – benefit analysis: cost of marine observation in Europe is circa 1 Billion Euro per year for in-situ data and 400 Million Euro per year for space data
The EU Blue Growth communication considers ocean and marine data as important input for driving scientific and economic developments
EMODnet initiative by EU DG MARE in 2008 together with other stakeholders: EU DG ENV, EU DG RTD, EU DG GROW, and EEA.
Focus on opening marine data, in particular for generating and providing generic European marine data products for different domains: bathymetry, geology, biology, chemistry, physics, seabed habitats, coastal mapping, and human activities
Use of standards is of vital importance as well as building upon ongoing initiatives

3. European Marine Observation and Data Network
(6 MEuro)
(16 MEuro)
(100 – 200 MEuro)
From prototypes to operational and robust infrastructures

4. EMODnet Chemistry (2013-16) Involves 46 institutes
Covers all European waters
Aims to collect, validate, and harmonise data, and to develop regional data products and new services for sharing and visualising data and data products
Approach for products by regions involving regional stakeholders and experts
Range of chemical substances divided over 3 matrices: water column, sediment, biota

5. EU – MAST EU – MASTII EU-FP5 EU-FP6 EU-FP7 EU-HORIZON 2020
Adopting and adapting SeaDataNet infrastructure and standards
EU – MAST EU – MASTII EU-FP5 EU-FP6 EU-FP7 EU-HORIZON 2020
90s
EDMED,MedAtlas,Euronodim,
EDIOS
Sea-Search
SeaDataNet
SeaDataNet II
SeaDataCloud
A pan-European infrastructure has been set up and is operated for managing marine and ocean data in a cooperation of National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs) and oceanographic data focal points from 35 countries bordering European seas

6. CDI service for discovery and unified access of data
Already 102 data centres connected

7. SeaDataNet: Strategic cooperation for adoption and positioning of the infrastructure
EuroGOOS: quality control and archiving long-term data series; EDIOS directory
Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service (CMEMS): provision of long-term archives for optimising marine forecast services; MoU’s with MyOcean 1 * 2 and CMEMS
POGO and EurOcean: collecting and providing information on ocean-going research vessels, and their operators, planned and completed cruises
IOC-IODE (UNESCO): supporting development of the Ocean Data Portal (ODP) facilitating exchange of marine data and services on a global scale and through a federated and interoperable network of national and regional data systems such as SeaDataNet for Europe.
GEOSS: contributing to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) for sharing data in multiple environmental domains
Research Data Alliance (RDA): contributing to several interest and working groups
ODIP: Ocean Data Interoperability Platform with USA, Canada and Australia to discuss common marine standards and interoperability

8. CDI Data Discovery & Access service
Coverage August 2016: > 1,85 million CDI entries from 102
data centres in 34 countries and 593 originators for physics,
chemistry, geology, geophysics, bathymetry and biology; years 1805 – 2016; 85,7% unrestricted or under SeaDataNet licence

9. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project
The overall objective of EMODnet Chemistry 2 is to provide access to marine chemistry data sets and derived data products concerning eutrophication and contaminants for all European sea regions
These data products are specifically relevant for MSFD Descriptors 5 (eutrophication), 8 (chemical pollution) and 9 (contaminants in seafood).
A major challenge has been and is the management of the heterogeneity and complexity of parameters addressed. To illustrate the situation:
3 matrices (water, sediment, biota) for 14 groups of variables (such as fertilisers, heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, and others) each having multiple parameters, measurement methods, laboratory methods, instruments used etc.
different data distributions in time and space;
different organisations leading environmental and research data in the different countries;
heterogeneous data policy.

10. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project approach
Gather with all partners relevant marine chemistry data sets (with a focus on eutrophication and contaminants), collected by marine environmental monitoring activities and by scientific research activities, and populating these in the SeaDataNet Common Data Index (CDI) Data Discovery and Access service.
This way all marine chemistry data sets can be retrieved in a homogeneous way with syntax standards for metadata and data formats, and semantic standards for attributes. Data files (ODV format) also include SeaDataNet quality flags.
For EMODnet Chemistry a virtual and dynamic subset of the SeaDataNet CDI service and collection has been set-up with its own user interfaces.
Resulted in > chemistry
data sets from 64 data centres
from 32 countries from 1868 – 2016,
most for water column and less for
sediments and biota

11. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project approach
Each regional coordinator has been tasked with preparing regional data products. Data products have been defined as:
Interpolated maps of specific parameters in time and depth per sea region;
Graphical time series of specific parameters at point locations, including depth (monitoring sites).
For efficiency the user interface of the CDI service has been expanded with a robot harvesting system that retrieves from connected data centres automatically all data sets within a configured query filter.

12. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project approach
Harvests have taken place for nutrients, contaminants and other substances. The harvested data sets have been transferred to the regional coordinators as ‘raw’ input for further processing.
Despite all standardisation there is still a lot of heterogeneity which requires further QA-QC and harmonisation on a regional scale. For this use is made by all regional coordinators of the Ocean Data View (ODV) software.
For instance, individual parameters (P01 vocab) have been grouped into harmonised parameters (P35 vocab) including associated units using vocab mapping and business rules.

13. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project approach
Also using refined QA-QC guidelines, the quite large regional collections of ‘raw’ data have been converted into harmonised, aggregated and validated data collections.

14. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project approach
From the collections spatially interpolated concentration basin maps have been produced using DIVA software, for those parameters that have sufficient spatial resolution at basin scales such as nutrients and dissolved oxygen.
Contaminants are mostly collected at fixed locations in the coastal zones as timeseries. For those parameters dynamic plots of timeseries and profiles have been formulated as data products.
Example of spatial distribution of nutrients in the Atlantic region with station maps and vertical plots

15. EMODnet Chemistry 2 project approach
DIVA concentration maps have been produced for each regional sea for selected parameters and depths at seasonal basis, as 10 year means, with a moving window allowing visualization of time evolution of concentration of chemical parameters.
Depending on sufficient spatial and temporal data for the regions, maps were produced for: Phosphate, Nitrate, Nitrate_plus_Nitrite, Silicate, Ammonium, Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus.
Generation of additional maps is still underway for: Oxygen, Chlorophyll-a, Dissolved organic carbon (DOC), pH and Alkalinity.
The data products, both validated data collections and DIVA basin maps, have been ingested in dedicated viewing services at the EMODnet Chemistry portal so that users can browse and visualise for selected parameters maps at basin scales of observation densities and (animated) maps of temporal and spatial evolution (also in depth) and plots of temporal and depth variability of monitoring points.
Example of spatial distribution of nutrients in the Atlantic region with station maps and vertical plots

16. EMODnet Chemistry 2 portal services
CDI Data Discovery and Access Service giving facilities for searching and retrieving chemistry source data sets;
OceanBrowser Viewing Service giving facilities for viewing, browsing and downloading of Chemistry data products;
Sextant Products catalogue service giving facilities for searching and downloading of Chemistry data products through the link with the OceanBrowser viewing service.
Advanced viewing services for timeseries and profiles giving facilities for generating and viewing dynamic plots of time series and profiles of selected parameters from data sets, selected from the harmonised, aggregated and validated data collections.
Example of spatial distribution of nutrients in the Atlantic region with station maps and vertical plots

17. OceanBrowser

18. Concentration maps of surface phosphate in spring

19. OceanBrowser displays of Adriatic Sea with Nitrate at different depth levels

20. OceanBrowser with advanced data view services

21. EMODnet Chemistry – INSPIRE Compliance
Applying Discovery – Viewing – Access services for retrieving marine chemistry source data sets
All viewers are based upon OGC WMS standards
CDI Metadata profile is based upon ISO – standards and marking up is supported by SeaDataNet Common Vocabularies
Sextant Product Metadata profile is based upon ISO – standards and marking up is supported by SeaDataNet Common Vocabularies
Downloadable data products are available in NetCDF4 (CF) format.
EMODnet Chemistry has adopted standards for the marine domain that have been developed and are maintained by SeaDataNet. SeaDataNet contributes to international standards committees such as OGC, ISO and W3C. And it has an active cooperation and tuning with the INSPIRE community, in particular the INSPIRE team of JRC.

22. EMODnet Chemistry – Tuning with MSFD and RSCs
Continued dialogue and interaction with MSFD stakeholders: Regional Sea Conventions (RSCs), DG Environment, EEA and some Member State representatives via the EMODnet - MSFD coordination meetings, set up by the EMODnet Secretariat
In addition, with RSCs via dedicated expert workshops, initiated by EMODnet Chemistry, focusing on dissemination and reviewing the fitness for purpose of data products.
Exchanges with MSFDs WGDIKE and TGDATA (sub-group of WGDIKE) on the possible use of EMODnet Chemistry for MSFD implementation.
Draft MoU’s between EMODnet Chemistry group and (1) the Black Sea Commission Secretariat and (2) UNEP/MAP for the Mediterranean.
Also OSPAR and HELCOM have become more interested as EMODnet can provide complementary data and data products for the North Sea – NE Atlantic area and the Baltic Sea in comparison with existing data flows from Member States and through ICES.
ICES has been a member of EMODnet Chemistry from the start

23. Data –> Information flow for MSFD

24. New proposal submitted for Phase 3 of EMODnet Chemistry
Almost the same consortium; however with BSCS and UNEP/MAP as subcontractors; OSPAR and HELCOM engaged via Letter of Support
Set-up of Board of MSFD experts to give advice on the scope and definition of products and to monitor development of products and services that are planned for the indicators (D5, D8, D9 and D10) to be in line with, and in support of, the needs of regionally developed and defined indicators.
Continuing and refining approach for nutrients and contaminants
Refining metadata, data and products for better fitness for purpose of MSFD
Scope expanded with Marine Litter and Riverine Inputs of nutrients
Upgrading of performance of services (big data) for supporting RSCs

25. SeaDataCloud funded – new opportunity and support for EMODnet Chemistry phase 3
Standards are always evolving and the SeaDataNet network must stay up-to-date to maintain and further expand its services to its lead customers and major stakeholders:
the European and international ocean and marine research community
Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service (CMEMS)
the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet) portals by which SeaDataNet services and output are used for serving stakeholders in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and actors in the marine and maritime economy
large marine observing networks (EuroGOOS, AtlantOS, Euro-ARGO, EMSO, JERICO-Next, and others).
The EU has just accepted the new SeaDataCloud proposal (10 Meuro) in the framework of the EU HORIZON 2020 programme for further developing the SeaDataNet infrastructure and associated standards in the coming 4 years.

26. SeaDataCloud – selection of planned activities
Improve services to users and data providers :
Utilise the benefits of a cloud environment with high performance computing to improve the performance of the CDI data access services;
Develop online services to visualise and process data, in order to preview, subset, format, or analyse data of interest;
Develop a Virtual Research Environment (VRE) to facilitate collaborative and individual research by users
Optimise connecting data centres and data streams to the infrastructure:
Ease connecting data centres to the SeaDataNet infrastructure by revising and upgrading the existing components;
Facilitate connecting and ingesting data streams from operational observation networks by making use of OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards, tuning and in collaboration with already ongoing projects such as ODIP Prototype 3
Improve interoperability with other European and International networks

27. SeaDataCloud – EMODnet Chemistry – NL situation
Active involvement by RWS, NIOZ and Deltares
RWS data included up to 2010
Issue with exporting water quality monitoring data from DONAR into SeaDataNet CDI and ODV formats
This issue urgently needs resolving by mapping AQUO vocabs to SeaDataNet vocabs and converting metadata and data structures using SeaDataNet tools and services (MIKADO and NEMO), like > 100 other data centres in Europe