The German Contribution to ESONET - Integrating Activities for Setting up an Interoperable Ocean Observation System in Europe

The project ESONET which is coordinated by IFREMER, France, is a European initiative towards establishing new -and making use of existing- ocean observatories around Europe for observing natural processes that are either very episodic or statistically require long time series. The most important processes are: (1) the episodic release of methane from the seabed affecting climate change, (2) the relationship between earthquakes, tsunami generation and submarine slope failures, and (3) the short term biogeochemical processes affecting the marine ecosystem. One of the major tasks is to integrate the existing infrastructures with new components to establish a coherent, long-term, manageable seafloor observation system within the larger scope of Earth observation systems. To reach this goal activities on different levels and in different fields have to be started to achieve a smooth interplay on the management and the implementation levels. Foremost is the integration of regional observatory initiatives, the integration of existing data and infrastructures in Europe, the sharing of facilities and the link with other international observatory programmes. Interoperability has to be achieved by building up on proven standardisation procedures. Any standardisation initiative has to start on the sensor level leading through the middleware up to an interoperable data access system. Existing realisation concepts will be evaluated and possibly adopted in its original form or modified Besides the data collection chain, the service and maintenance procedures for installing instruments and platforms on the sites of interest have to be standardised as well. This is related to the operation deployment tools like ROVs and dedicated Lander systems or the preparation of special installations making use of special drilling devices. Overall, this leads to the formation of a sustainable operation system for the anticipated observatory infrastructure. In particular in the US and Canada inte- nse discussions on this topic have been started and are continuing. Setting up firm links between all these initiatives and deriving a cooperative approach only makes ocean observatories a truly relevant building block for a global earth observation system. It is of utmost importance that ESONET is able to contribute to these discussions properly as Europe has a strong interest in this field not just scientifically but also for instance as part of a general strategy for establishing early warning systems. All these activities will be undertaken in close cooperation with other ongoing projects in particular with the GEO initiative where GMES forms the European component of GEO. As part of the 10 years implementation plan GEO will as a first step come up with concepts for integrating existing data sources into an interoperable system. For the ESONET initiative five German institutions have formed a partnership under the umbrella of KDM. This enables a better coordination regarding the integration of scientific needs as well as technically feasible solutions. KDM is an organisation meant to coordinate marine research activities in Germany, particularly in regard to European efforts, to avoid parallel activities, and to ensure a more efficient course of action vis-a-vie funding agencies and science policy makers. This approach is indispensable for the ESONET initiative to be successful. The German members of the ESONET team under KDM umbrella with their main area of expertise are: University of Bremen -Ocean margin research, employing dedicated deep sea instrumentation Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology - Biogeochemical processes making use of newly developed sensor systems. International University of Bremen -Seafloor investigations employing recording instrumentation. Alfred-Wegener-Institute -Polar research disposing over the essential technical infrastructure. IFM-GEOMAR -Seafloor and water column processes.