Requirements and approaches for a more cost-efficient assessment of ocean waters and ecosystems, and fisheries management

Abstract

Development of a new generation of multifunctional sensor systems is underway to address ocean monitoring challenges. These range from more precise monitoring of the marine environment to an improved management of fisheries and, among other things, address improved life cycle costefficiency. These advances will be achieved through innovations such as multiplatform integration, greater reliability through better antifouling management and greater sensor and data interoperability. Requirements for the sensors have been refined through surveys and discussions with science and industry users. This paper will describe these developments in the NeXOS project.

A research port test bed based on distributed optical sensors and sensor fusion framework for ad hoc situational awareness

“…As a consequence of the demand to set up distributed sensors in real-world study areas, there are challenges for the complete sensor framework. Among others (Pearlman et al, 2014;When et al, 2007), we need to address distributed deployment, extensibility for large area sensor networks, data stream and information transmission, remote access between onshore and offshore participants, central system administration, tailored user interfaces, uniform open data interface and networked synchronized operation. This leads to the following research question: how is it possible to use independent flexible sensor systems with open interfaces for the generation of distributed situational awareness by sensor fusion technology to provide an open test bed for system verification and validation?…”

Acoustic and optical methods to infer water transparency at Time Series Station Spiekeroog, Wadden Sea

“…Time Series Station Spiekeroog (TSS; Fig. 1) is a multidisciplinary, autonomously operating observatory located in a tidal channel between the islands of Langeoog and Spiekeroog at 53 • 45.016 N, 7 • 40.266 E (Reuter et al, 2009). These islands are part of an island barrier system in the East Frisian Wadden Sea, southern North Sea, which belongs to the UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites.…”

“…Over the past decades, scientists, policy makers, and the public have become more aware of issues of environmental concern such as water quality (WFD, 2000;OECD, 1993;Borja et al, 2013). To better understand the dynamics of water quality, it is necessary to use different platforms and tools, which allow for collecting data over a broad range of temporal and spatial scales (Zielinski et al, 2009;Pearlman et al, 2014). The information from these different tools ought to be comparable for a comprehensive and reliable view of these dynamics.…”

Smart embedded passive acoustic devices for real-time hydroacoustic surveys

“…PAM in areas of such human activities can be an effective way to monitor how noise potentially affects marine mammals by measuring how much of their acoustic habitat is being lost [2]. Generally, PAM systems include: single or multiple acoustic transducers for sound acquisition; internal electronics to control the system and for acoustic data conditioning, storage of raw audio data [3], and some may provide processing power to analyse acoustic data in real-time [4] [5]. However, the majority of the available commercial passive acoustic sensors cannot perform simultaneous measurement of sound level extremes (very low and very high), and data processing has to be performed on costly and/or bulky systems, generally impractical for mobile platforms [3].…”