Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

*|*

# 52012SC0250

**COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Interim Evaluation of the European Marine Observation and Data Network Accompanying the document Green Paper Marine Knowledge 2020: from seabed mapping to ocean forecasting /\* SWD/2012/0250 final \*/**

  

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

Interim Evaluation of the European Marine
Observation and Data  Network

Accompanying the document

Green Paper

Marine Knowledge 2020: from seabed
mapping to ocean forecasting

Contents

Executive Summary........................................................................................................................ i

Rationale........................................................................................................................................ i

European Marine Observation and Data Network.......................................................................... i

What was delivered....................................................................................................................... ii

Relevance..................................................................................................................................... ii

Effectiveness and Efficiency........................................................................................................... ii

1........... Purpose.......................................................................................................................... 1

2........... Scope............................................................................................................................ 1

3........... What Was
Requested..................................................................................................... 2

3.1........ The portals..................................................................................................................... 2

3.2........ The projects................................................................................................................... 3

4........... What was
Delivered....................................................................................................... 3

4.1........ Underlying
technologies.................................................................................................. 4

4.2........ Composition of
thematic assembly groups....................................................................... 5

4.3........ Metadata, Data and
Data Products................................................................................. 5

5........... Relevance....................................................................................................................... 6

5.1........ Benefits.......................................................................................................................... 6

5.2........ Example......................................................................................................................... 7

6........... Management................................................................................................................... 8

6.1........ Reports.......................................................................................................................... 8

6.2........ Payments........................................................................................................................ 9

7........... Effectiveness................................................................................................................... 9

7.1........ Specific contract
to evaluate EMODnet........................................................................... 9

7.1.1..... User-friendliness........................................................................................................... 10

7.1.2..... Reusability
of data........................................................................................................ 11

7.1.3..... Data
policy................................................................................................................... 11

7.2........ Mutual Awareness
Meetings......................................................................................... 11

7.3........ Marine Observation
and Data Expert Group................................................................. 11

7.4........ Observations from
Commission Services and EU Agencies............................................ 12

8........... Efficiency...................................................................................................................... 12

8.1........ Implementation............................................................................................................. 13

8.2........ Comparison with
other initiatives................................................................................... 13

8.2.1..... Research
Projects......................................................................................................... 13

8.2.2..... The
Data Collection Framework................................................................................... 14

8.2.3..... Global
Monitoring for Environment and Security............................................................ 14

8.3........ Administrative
Costs..................................................................................................... 14

9........... Lessons Learned.......................................................................................................... 15

Annex 1. Organisations
Involved in ur-EMODnet......................................................................... 17

Executive Summary

Rationale

The oceans and seas that surround Europe offer
new opportunities to meet the Europe 2020 goals[1].
They can contribute towards the clean energy we need. They can deliver the
protein we need for healthy diets. They can provide challenging and rewarding
jobs.

To realise this potential, we need to make it
easier for companies to invest. We need to lower costs, reduce risks and
stimulate innovation. And we need to ensure that this expansion of the blue
economy is sustainable. The resources are large but not infinite.

This is where marine knowledge comes in.
Potential investors in a new venture need to know whether the ocean floor is
sand or rock. They need to know what the ecosystem is like in order to assess
any potential impact. They need to know the likelihood, frequency and severity
of potentially damaging storms or tsunamis in order to gauge the risk.

It does not make sense for future investors to
measure all these parameters themselves if somebody has already done it. But it
can be very difficult to find out who holds these data. It can take much time
and effort to negotiate access to them and it can be a nightmare to create a
coherent picture of a particular area out of observations with different
baselines, different units, different resolution and different formats.

European
Marine Observation and Data Network

The aim of the European Marine Observation and
Data Network (EMODnet) is to improve access to marine data and so reduce costs
to users, stimulate innovation and reduce uncertainty in our understanding of
the behaviour of the seas and oceans.

To test how this could be done a number of
preparatory actions were started in the period 2008-2010. Consortia of marine
data organisations, selected through calls for tender and implemented through
procurement contracts, set up portals that provide access to marine data,
metadata and data products for six themes for whole sea-basins. 53 different
organisations participated in the projects; largely public bodies responsible
for managing marine data on a national scale but supported by some small
private companies with expertise in managing distributed data. All the metadata
and data products and most of the data are made available to users free of
charge and free of restriction of use. A total of €6,450,000 was committed.

What was
delivered

This evaluation covers five portals –
hydrography, geology, chemistry, biology and habitats. The contract for one of
the portals, physical parameters, only began at the tail-end of 2010 so no
conclusions can be drawn yet.

The portals provided access not only to the
data themselves but also to data products. Thus, rather than being limited to
information at a discrete set of measurement points, users were able to obtain
information on parameters such as sediment type, water depth and habitat type
at all points in the sea-basin. This did not only include the value of the
parameter but also the confidence level (eg ± 20%). Users can live with
uncertainty in measurements but they need to know what the uncertainty is.

The work of the groups was closely monitored by
services of the Commission, the European Environment Agency and an independent
Marine Observation and Data Expert Group. The effectiveness of the portals was
tested by a contractor.

Relevance

An impact assessment has shown that once the
present fragmented marine data infrastructure is rationalised, those involved
in marine and maritime activities will gain €300 million in competiveness
and another €200 million a year will be generated through innovative new
products and services.

An Expert Group monitored the projects and
hosted a number of meetings where public authorities and the marine industry
expressed their needs for data[2].
The offshore wind industry, cable laying companies and those in charge of
protecting coastlines against erosion have all expressed strong support for the
European Marine Observation and Data Network.

Effectiveness
and Efficiency

The portals worked as expected. They allow
users to obtain an overview of available data and data products and to download
data for use. They were fit for purpose although some were more intuitive than
others to use.

Data providers need to know what data is being
used for, so some of the portals have user identification procedures. A single
sign-in procedure for all EMODnet portals, also allowing access to GMES, should
be a goal for the next generation of EMODnet.

There are some arguments in favour of merging
the hydrography and geology groups. Although these are separate at a national
level, this is partly for historic reasons and now both groups are using
similar instruments and techniques for determining seabed properties. However
this merging requires some further reflection and would be a longer term aim
rather than an immediate priority. The experts and most users believe that a
single portal for all parameters should be constructed that provides access to
all the metadata, data and data products.

The deliverables represent good value for
money. Public bodies spend over one a half billion euro a year in collecting
marine data. For a proportionally small outlay, many of these previously
inaccessible data have become available. The cost reflects not only the work
done in processing the data to common standards but also gaining the agreement
of data providers to release data.

1.           Purpose

This report is an interim evaluation of
preparatory actions carried out in the period 2008-2010 with the aim of
improving access to marine data. It was produced by Commission services
incorporating the results of independent evaluators in the framework of article 27(4) of the EU's Financial Regulation [3].

2.           Scope

Following the Commission's 2007 Blue Paper for
integrated maritime policy[4],
the European Parliament proposed a budget for Preparatory Actions and Pilot
Projects to assess the feasibility and desirability of future legislative
proposals. Accordingly the EU budget incorporated a total of €14.7 million
for preparatory actions over the three years 2008-2010 and €6 million for
pilot projects over the two years 2008-2009.

Of this budget, €6,450,000 was committed to
projects for marine knowledge, the .long-term objectives of which were
clarified in the Commission Communication "Marine Knowledge 2020"[5] as being to: reduce costs to
users of marine data for private industry, public authorities and researchers;
stimulate competition and innovation; and reduce uncertainty in the behaviour
of the seas and oceans. An impact assessment[6]
quantified the benefits that would accrue from achieving these objectives and
the costs of EU measures that would deliver these benefits.

The preparatory action projects were intended
to provide prototype components for a Marine Observation and Data Network
(ur-EMODnet) that would not only test the underlying concept but also provide
concrete products that would be useful in themselves. None of the projects has
yet been completed so a complete evaluation is not yet feasible. However, a
number of them have already delivered tangible results and it is proposed to
begin work on follow-ups under a new programme to support the further
development of an Integrated Maritime Policy[7].

The overall aim of this evaluation is to
evaluate the preparatory actions in order that any follow-up actions take
account of the lessons learned. The evaluation takes account of: relevance (do the projects have contributed towards meeting the objectives set
out in "Marine Knowledge 2020"?), management
(were deliverables timely?), effectiveness (what worked
well and what did not?) and efficiency (were the actions implemented in the
most cost-effective way?),

3.           What
Was Requested

3.1.        The portals

"Marine Knowledge 2020" identified
"thematic assembly groups" as key elements of a future operational
European Marine Observation and Data Network. Each thematic assembly group is a
consortium of organisations that assemble fragmented marine data and make them
available through a single portal. Altogether 53 different organisations took
part (see annex 1).

The aim is not to construct a giant database;
the data themselves may remain in separate archives but they should be
accessible through a single entry point or "portal". Each type of
data requires a separate approach so six different portals have been set up:

(1)
hydrography – bathymetry (water depth),
coastlines, underwater features (wrecks etc)

(2) geology – sediments, strata, coastal erosion, geological hazards

(3) physics – temperature, waves, currents, sea-level, light penetration

(4) chemistry – concentrations of chemicals in water, sediments and
biota

(5) biology – abundance of living species

(6) physical habitats – habitat classification based on physical
parameters (water depth, light penetration, sediments etc)

The preparatory action funding was not
sufficient to cover data from all European seas with these portals so each one
covers a subset of the sea-basins. Each one includes the North Sea and at least
two other basins. All European seas subject to the Marine Strategy Framework
Directive[8],
except Macaronesia[9],
are included in at least one portal. The portals should provide access to:

(1)
data – raw observations or measurements

(2) metadata – information about the data such as location and time of
measurement, units, precision)

(3) data products – products derived from the data; normally by
interpolation in space and time. Data products include digital terrain models
on regular grids or geological maps. The predicted habitat maps are also a
product, developed through integration of other data sets. Thus users can
obtain estimates of parameter values between measurement points.

3.2.        The projects

Each thematic assessment group was set-up
following an open call for tender.

Thematic group || bids || Main contractor [10] || Start || Coverage

hydrography || 3 || MARIS b.v, Netherlands || 29/05/2009 || North Sea, Celtic Seas, the Western Mediterranean, the Ionian Sea and the Central Mediterranean;

hydrography || 2 || MARIS bv, Netherlands || 08/06/2010 || Eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Iberian Atlantic and Biscay

geology || 2 || NERC BGS, UK || 16/07/2009 || North Sea, Baltic and Celtic Seas

physics || 1 || ETT, Italy || 17/12/2010 || All European seas

chemistry || 2 || OGS, Italy || 04/06/2009 || North Sea, Black Sea and selected parts of Mediterranean

biology || 3 || VLIZ, Belgium || 15/05/2009 || North Sea, Bay of Biscay and the Iberian Coast

physical habitats || 2 || JNCC, UK || 18/02/2009 || North Sea, Celtic Seas, Baltic and Western Mediterranean

Each project lasts for 3 years with
intermediate reports at the 12 and 18 month stage. The portals should be
operational after 24 months when a "final" report is delivered. The
last (third) year is devoted to maintenance of the portal. This means that
portals are now operational for all thematic groups except that for physics for
which the project only started in December 2010.

4.           What was Delivered

The specifications for the calls for tender
were almost identical and not designed to favour any particular technology.
However there were some constraints:

(1)
the data, metadata and data products should
respect European standards. The main framework for these standards is the
INSPIRE Directive[11].
This is a two-way process. Standards generally exist for the higher level
standards that are common to all data (longitude, latitude, time) but more
specialised data (e.g. concentration of caesium 137 found in the flesh of a
common mussel) generally are not. It is a task of the thematic assembly group
to define a standard and to ensure its acceptance.

(2)
metadata and data products should be free of
charge and free for use for whatever purpose. Where possible this should also
be true for data as well but this was not always possible due to licence
restrictions by the data owners.

4.1.        Underlying technologies

None of the projects started from scratch. All
the thematic groups based their portal software to some extent on technologies
and standards developed through EU projects – mostly from the EU Framework
projects for research but one was based on work done under Interreg[12].

(1)
Three of the projects used the SeaDataNet
standards to describe their metadata. This was developed through a series of EU
Framework Programme projects starting with SEASEARCH in the Fifth Framework
Programme and followed by SeaDataNet projects in the Sixth and Seventh
Framework Programmes.

(2)
The biological group based their software on the
European Ocean Biogeographic Information System "EurOBIS" which is an
integrated data system developed by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) for
the EU Network of Excellence "Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Functioning" (MarBEF) in 2004.

(3)
The geology group used software, methods and
standards developed under the OneGeology Europe project which aims to provide
access to European geological data. OneGeology Europe covers land data so this
choice ensured continuity between land and sea.

(4)
The physics group made use of components
developed within the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)
MyOcean project for the delivery of real-time observations as well as
SeaDataNet for archived observations.

(5)
The physical habitats group differs from the other
groups in that it delivers products (seabed maps) based on modelling several
types of measurement. The group derived habitat type from measurements of
parameters such as water depth, wave energy, sediment type, temperature and
light penetration. The work was based on results from the Interreg MESH (North
Sea and Celtic Sea) and BALANCE (Baltic) projects. The EMODnet group harmonised
the classification between the two areas and extended the analysis to the
Western Mediterranean, using the European EUNIS classification as the standard
classification for the maps.

4.2.        Composition of thematic assembly groups

The 53 organisations belonging to the thematic
assembly groups were largely from the public sector. Some observations
concerning the composition are;

(1)
Two thematic groups (physics and hydrography)
were led by small private companies.

(2)
The geology group was the most homogeneous. The
partnership consisted of the national organisations of each country bordering
the sea-basins concerned that are responsible for geological surveys.

(3)
The chemistry group was largely made of research
institutes and national oceanographic data centres (see annex 1). They readily
shared data but were unable to obtain all the data held by environmental
agencies – particularly round the Black Sea.

(4)
National hydrographic agencies were
conspicuously absent from the hydrographic group. The only exception was the
French Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine (SHOM). This
heterogeneity of the hydrographic group is partly due to a reticence of
hydrographic agencies to provide detailed data and partly due to the fact that
many other types of organisations survey seabeds. However national hydrographic
agencies did provide data products to the groups and the International Hydrographic
Organisation has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the
Commission that could open a structured dialogue on this matter.

4.3.        Metadata, Data and Data Products

Three of the groups - hydrography, geology and
physical habitats – managed to deliver data products that are immediately
useful for data users. These were:

(1)
coverage of most European waters[13] with a digital terrain model[14] of one quarter of a minute
resolution (approximately 500 metres). This is certainly not a fine enough
resolution for many applications and the underlying survey data would allow
finer resolution in some places but it is double the resolution of previous
publicly available data.

(2)
sediment maps for selected European sea-basins
at a scale of one to one million. This reflects efforts by the thematic group
to reclassify maps of each country's waters using common criteria. Previously
countries had used different grain sizes to distinguish the different
categories of mud, sand, gravel or boulders.

(3)
Physical habitat maps covering a significant
proportion of European seas with habitat maps. It is now possible to compare in
a quantitative way the Baltic with the North Sea, to estimate what proportion
of certain habitat types are covered by marine protected areas or determine which
habitat types might be disturbed by bottom trawling

For the other types of data – physics, chemistry and biology, there
has been more emphasis on collating data and metadata. The reasons for this
are:

(1)
Chemical data are heterogeneous. Measurements
are made in the water column, the sediment and biota. Furthermore the
concentrations can vary greatly between measurement points that are located
within metres of each other.

(2)
The challenge with biological measurements is to
quantify the sampling effort. How do we compare the number of specimens of a
certain species of invertebrate found in a benthic sample with those found in
another area sampled with a different instrument? If a certain species is not
recorded in a sample is it because it was not present or because nobody looked
for it?

(3)
The thematic assembly group for physics focuses
on data and metadata. The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)[15] MyOcean project is the
prototype for a "marine core service". It already delivers hindcasts,
nowcasts and forecasts for European seas for parameters such as temperature,
current and salinity. The physics thematic assembly group will complement this
by providing raw measurements that can feed into these MyOcean models. EMODnet
also provides measurements in the near-coast regions where GMES does not reach.

5.           Relevance

5.1.        Benefits

An impact assessment[16] has determined that Europe
spends approximately €1.5 billion a year of public money on marine
observations but that they are difficult to use. It is very difficult for
business, especially small start-up enterprises, to find these data and to
obtain permission to use them. And even when they do so, it costs them so much
to put incompatible data from a multitude of bodies together, that they are
unable to create value-added services or products at a price that the market
can pay. This lack of competiveness costs the European economy approximately
€300 million per year.

The loss of opportunity to develop innovative
high added-value products costs the economy another €60 to €200 million per
year. It is unrealistic to expect new services and products from EMODnet at
this very early stage. However some enterprising companies are beginning to
spot opportunities – for instance within the framework of the Irish SmartBay
initiative.

These figures do not include the improvement in
efficiency that would result from a reduced uncertainty in our understanding of
the behaviour of the sea – for instance in coastal protection. Since the ocean
circulation is the primary driver for seasonal variation in climate, a better
understanding of the oceans can bring a better knowledge of what the future
climate might bring.

Furthermore these estimates do not take into
account the growing marine economy. They are based on 2010 figures.

Water and Marine Directors of the European Union, Candidate and EFTA
Countrieshave indicated in Warsaw, 8-9 December 2011 that EMODnet would
contribute to their future reporting for the Marine
Strategy Framework Directive.

5.2.        Example

The relevance and usefulness of the preparatory
action projects is best understood through an example. Figure 1 shows a
screenshot from the hydrography portal. This portal provides the highest
resolution digital terrain model covering European seas that is currently
available. A digital terrain model is a digital model or
three dimensional representation of the seabed (Figure 2).
The bathymetry is represented by a grid of values for the depth of water with
the resolution defined as the length of the sides of each grid cell. The different colours indicate the different organisations that have
provided data uses to create the digital terrain model. 20 different
organisations provided data based on survey data from 113 organisations.

Previously users would have had to ask each of
these data owners separately for the data and then process them to create the
model. However, a digital terrain model is needed for nearly all analyses of
the marine environment so each organisation would have separately needed to do
the same processing. In practice they did not do so because the cost of
creating the data layer and the time needed to do it would not have been
justifiable. They would have had to make do with lower resolution data.

Thus the new data product reduces the cost to
those who need digital terrain models; it creates new possibilities for
innovation using products and services derived from the higher resolution data
and increases the precision and hence reduces the uncertainty of all analyses
that had previously used lower resolution data.

This screenshot also shows grey areas where the
thematic assembly group were unable to obtain the necessary permissions for the
data needed to create the digital terrain model or where no surveys had been
done that would allow the quarter minute resolution model to be constructed. In
these cases the thematic assembly group used lower resolution data.

Figure 1 a screenshot from the hydrography portals. The different colours indicate the different organisations that have provided data to create a digital terrain model || Figure 2 Digital terrain model of Bay of Biscay and Iberian coasts region

The portal also allows an evaluation of the
accuracy and precision of the data. Users can interrogate a particular point
and find out how many surveys contributed to the digital terrain model there
and what the standard deviation is. They can also generate a map showing where
the areas with the lowest accuracy are.

Another example is the sediment data layer
produced by the thematic area group for geology (Figure 3). This is the first
time that such a data layer has been produced for marine sediments. The first
stages of planning a cabling or pipe-laying operation across the North Sea can
now use a set of data that is consistent for the waters of all the coastal
states. Furthermore the marine data is perfectly consistent with the land data
which facilitates the task of coastal zone management.

||

Figure 3 Sediment layers produced by the geology
thematic assembly group (The land areas use the OneGeologyEurope
classification)

6.           Management

6.1.        Reports

During the period of this evaluation five of
the thematic groups delivered "final" reports although the contracts
will run for another year in a "maintenance" phase. It would be
inappropriate to judge the projects purely on the reports because the main
deliverables were working portals. All the projects delivered portals are of
acceptable quality. The evaluation of these portals is considered more
carefully in section 7 "Effectiveness". Four of the reports were
delivered within four working days of the deadline. Only one took longer - ten
working days. The Commission had forty five days to evaluate them and all these
were completed within this time. Three of the reports were accepted. Revisions
were requested for the other two – primarily to make the reports more
comprehensible to a general reader. The contractors provided modified versions
of the reports within the stipulated 20 days.

6.2.        Payments

The interval between the expected delivery of a
report and the payment made to the contractor was analysed. Excluding the
pre-financing payment for the physics portal, the average was two and half
months. This pre-financing for the physics portal was delayed because of the
complicated administrative procedures necessary to obtain a bank guarantee from
an Italian bank. Contractors who submitted a report on time that was accepted
first time and who submitted an invoice together with the report were paid
within one or two months. Only one of the twenty payments was outside the
Commissions' limit. Interest of €223.56 was paid to the contractor. Steps have
been taken to ensure that this does not happen again.

7.           Effectiveness

The effectiveness of the portals was checked
through

(1)
a specific contract[17]. The consultants, MRAG Ltd,
were given the task of checking the operation of the portals for
user-friendliness and fitness for purpose.

(1)
mutual awareness through common six-monthly
meetings.

(2)
examination by peers. The independent 28-member
Marine Observation and Data Expert Group[18]
attend the ur-EMODnet mutual awareness meetings and deliver opinions on
progress.

(3)
assessment by Commission services and EU
agencies.

7.1.        Specific contract to evaluate EMODnet

A contract to evaluate the ur-EMODnet portals
was awarded to MRAG Ltd in December 2011. Intermediate results were presented
to the thematic assembly groups who had developed the portals, to the Marine
Observation and Data Expert Group, to services of the Commission and to the
European Environment Agency. Comments from these groups were taken into account
in the final report[19]
that was accepted in August 2010. The evaluation aimed to answer three
questions:

(1)
user-friendliness – How easy is it to navigate
the portals and how much information do they provide about the underlying data?

(2)
fitness for purpose – Can the data be downloaded
and processed easily?

(3)
data policy – Is it clear who owns the data and
what they can be used for?

7.1.1.     User-friendliness

Table 1 matrix comparing portals

portal || good first impression || portal intuitive to use || instructions were useful || data easy to find || portal had advanced features and functions || data was easy to access || data was comprehensive || data was in convenient format

biology || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\* || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\*\*

chemistry || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\*

geology || \*\* || \*\* || \* || \* || \*\* || \*\* || \*\* || \*\*

hydrography || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\*\* || \*\*\*

physical habitats || \*\* || \*\* || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\* || \*\*\* || \*\* || \*\*\*

All of the portals were found to be intuitive
to use, with all of them, apart from the physical habitats one, providing a
searchable catalogue and a map interface for retrieving records. The continuity
between the land and sea layers in the geology portal is certainly an advantage
but it was hard to separate and analyse only the marine layers.

Difficulties in finding data were normally
attributed to poor or non-standard metadata. In other words the same type of
data was described differently in the distributed databases feeding information
to the portal.

Data providers need to know what data is being
used for so some of the portals have user identification procedures. However,
lengthy or inhomogeneous procedures can discourage data users. There is as yet
no single sign-in procedure for all EMODnet portals.

The data quality indicators were generally
clear and useful for the data products assembled during the project. The
information on quality for sets of the underlying data was sometimes harder to
interpret if the set was composed of data from more than one provider.

7.1.2.     Reusability of data

Most users will not be satisfied with viewing
maps on the portal. Rather they will want to download data, process them and
integrate them with other data using either their own software or commercial
data processing, statistical, graphical platforms such as SAS, MATLAB or
ARCGIS. A number of tests were run to see how easy it was to do this.

Bathymetric and geological data layers were
downloaded from their respective portals and fed successfully into a
geographical information system. Data downloaded from the biology portal
allowed the number of observations of certain species of seabirds in a certain
area to be determined. Physical habitat data enabled an estimate of the total
area covered by different habitat types within a selected area. Data downloaded
from the chemistry portal allowed an assessment of the spatial and temporal
distribution of pollutants. The evaluation confirmed that the objective of
trouble-free reusability had been achieved.

7.1.3.     Data policy

Data accessed through the portals may be
subject to intellectual property rights. Clarifying the data owner of data
downloaded from the portal allows these rights to be respected. Analysis showed
that intellectual property rights issues have clearly been taken into account
in the design and operation of the portals.

7.2.        Mutual Awareness Meetings

Representatives of the groups met together each
six months to report progress in the presence of the Commission[20]. This allowed different
technologies to be compared, best practice to be determined and better
cooperation across cross-thematic groups. It promoted interoperability by
preventing the portals from diverging into completely separate independent
platforms.

7.3.        Marine Observation and Data Expert Group

The Marine Observation and Data Expert Group
meets four times a year. At two of these meetings the work of the thematic
assembly group is presented to them. Summaries of all meetings and copies of
all presentations are publicly available through the EU maritime forum[21].

Other than detailed points that are largely
covered in the assessment by MRAG, and in a summary of their meeting[22] the Expert Group concluded
that:

(1)
a main entry portal giving access to all the
thematic assembly groups should be set up. The Commission plans to implement
one with the 2012-2013 budget.

(2)
The preparatory actions are on the right track
but they must be followed up. If the EU ceases to take an interest the momentum
will be lost.

(3)
In the longer term consideration should be given
to

(a)
merging the hydrography and geology groups. Both
geologists and hydrographers make extensive use of multibeam echosounders to
measure the bottom of the sea. Although most countries have a national
hydrographic office and a national geological survey, there is considerable
overlap in their surveying work. The Expert Group wondered whether it might be
feasible to combine the hydrography and geology thematic assembly groups. There
is considerable merit in the idea which should be considered seriously for the
third post-2013 phase of the project.

(b)
deeper integration with the GMES and the Data Collection
Framework for fisheries.

7.4.        Observations from Commission Services and EU Agencies

The preparatory actions were implemented by the
Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (MARE) and the project
has been followed from the outset by other services of the Commission – mostly
the Directorate Generals for Environment (ENV), Research and Innovation (RTD),
Enterprise (ENTR) as well as the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European
Environment Agency (EEA). Other services, such as the Directorates General for
Information Society and Competition (INFSO and COMP) have assisted on matters
relating to the benefits to competition of the re-use of public information.
These services of the Commission have checked tender specifications, attended
expert group meetings and monitored outputs of projects.

ENV and EEA have been particularly interested
in the possibility of using EMODnet to help Member States report the state of
Europe's seas as part of their obligations under the Marine Strategy Framework
Directive[23]
and their continued presence in the monitoring process has assured that this is
possible.

8.           Efficiency

It is difficult to determine whether or not the
same results could have been obtained for a cheaper price. The projects were
implemented through procurement for fixed prices set by Commission services.
Therefore, the Commission services have no knowledge of how much effort the
contractors put into their work or how much profit or loss they made. However
whether or not the EU obtained a good deal can be ascertained in other ways. In
particular the following questions are relevant

(1)
was the implementation through procurement
appropriate or would a grant have been better?

(2)
how well do the results of the project compare
to projects with similar goals?

(3)
were the administrative costs of the projects
reasonable?

8.1.        Implementation

The Financial Regulation allows projects to be
implemented in two basic ways – as a procurement or a grant. In the case of a
procurement the Commission obtains a product or service it needs in return for
payment, while in the case of a grant it makes a contribution either to a
project carried out by an external organization or direct to that organization
because its activities contribute to Community policy aims. However, in practice
many projects can be implemented in either way. In this case procurements were
chosen in order to give the EU ownership rights over the data products and thus
facilitate the open access policy advocated not only in "Marine Knowledge
2020" but also in the Public Sector Information Directive[24].

A further argument in favour of procurement was
that the Commission could specify exactly what should be delivered and payments
were made on acceptance of these deliverables. With grants, on the other hand,
payment is effectively made on the input - effort put in - and there is less
control of the output. Should some legal entity emerge with a mission to
deliver the type of services and products that are compatible with the
objectives of "Marine Knowledge 2020" then a negotiated procedure
could be considered.

8.2.        Comparison with other initiatives

The European Marine Observation and Data
Network is not the first or only initiative that aims to provide better
dissemination of marine data. Indeed "Marine Knowledge 2020"
emphasises that it is only one of a number of complementary EU efforts. One way
of measuring the efficiency of the preparatory actions is to determine how the
€6.45 million committed[25]
adds value to these other efforts.

8.2.1.     Research Projects

There is no precise figure as to how much the
EU spends on marine or maritime research because there is no one theme devoted
to this issue. However a reasonable estimate is €367 million per year[26]. A
number of these projects such as SeaDataNet and GEOSEAS have provided
underpinning technology for EMODnet.

The cost of the EMODnet work is reasonable. The
OneGeologyEurope project is similar to EMODnet's geology lot. Both provide one
to one million scale geological layers. OneGeologyEurope covers the land area
of Europe for a cost to the EU of €2.7 million whilst EMODnet covers
approximately one third of the sea area for €.0.925 million. The costs are
comparable.

8.2.2.     The Data Collection Framework

The Data Collection Framework adopted in 2008[27] obliges Member States to
collect, manage and provide high quality fisheries data for the purpose of
scientific advice. The EU provides co-financing of more than €40 million per
year towards the activity The new framework obliges Member States to provide
access to these data for fisheries management advice, scientific publication,
public debate and stakeholder participation in policy development.

However nearly all fish stock management
required data from more than one country and once assembled, the data cannot
then be re-used for another purpose without the permission of all the data
owners. There are no web-sites providing access to digital data on a sea-basin,
fishing fleet or fish stock basis. Measures to improve access to the data,
along the lines of EMOdnet, are being considered.

8.2.3.     Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security

The Global Monitoring for Environment and
Security (GMES) initiative is a flagship of the EU's space policy. Between 2011
and 2013 the EU has allocated €1.3 billion to the initiative. Again much
of the expenditure has been on the expensive business of satellite operation.
However specific efforts have been made to provide data products for ocean
observation. This has been achieved largely through the 39-month MyOcean
project to which the EU contributed €33 million. A follow-up of a similar
magnitude has now started.

Indeed the EMODnet physics thematic assembly
group is directly linked to GMES. The same infrastructure is used to deliver
real-time physical measurements and in-situ measurements assembled by EMODnet
are used to calibrate and validate the GMES forecasts and satellite
measurements. Furthermore EMODnet covers the near coastal regions that are not
included in MyOcean.

MyOcean has a global coverage and its
forecasting capability has no parallel in EMODnet. Nevertheless EMODnet adds
value to what is being done within MyOcean at a cost that is not
disproportionate.

8.3.        Administrative Costs

The effort of the Commission in setting up and
monitoring these projects up to the time that the last one has finished will be
approximately two-person years for project management and one person year for
financial management. This includes setting up the calls for tender, evaluating
them, implementing the resulting projects, monitoring the output and reporting
to budgetary authorities. It does not include dissemination of the results to
stakeholders at various conferences and workshops. The administrative costs are
therefore approximately 6% of the total costs of the project. This is
proportionate.

9.           Lessons Learned

The preparatory actions indicated that the
basic architecture for marine data set out in "Marine Knowledge 2020"
is appropriate. Leaving data and metadata in national or archives and receiving
them automatically on demand is more efficient than asking the Member States to
report to a central body.

The basic division of thematic assembly groups
into hydrography, geology, physics, chemistry, biology and physical habitats
was justified. Asking one group to look at all types of data would be setting too
broad a task. Conversely splitting the groups further (eg physical parameters
into a group for fixed buoys and another for ships) would risk
incompatibilities in data standards. However further thought is needed as to
whether the hydrography and geology groups could be considered for the third
post-2013 phase of the initiative.

The data products produced by hydrography,
geology and physical habitat groups are immediately useful whereas the users of
the chemistry and biology portals require the raw data because it is extremely
difficult within the limited budget available under the preparatory actions to
create automatic algorithms for constructing distribution maps of concentration
or abundance. It is too early to say whether this is the case for the physical
portal because this project only started at the tail end of 2010.

There is now a better understanding of the data
policies of the hundreds of data holders within the EU. Hydrographic offices
are still reluctant to release their highest resolution data. However, a
Memorandum of Understanding with the International Hydrographic Office has now
been signed and this should enable a structured dialogue to take place as to
how the data policies could be liberalised. Some environmental agencies are
concerned lest "unofficial" interpretations of data be used to
determine compliance with environmental standards. In other words, they do not
want to provide ammunition for those who challenge the competent authority's
opinion as to whether or not a certain standard has been met. However, on the
whole most data holders see the benefits of the exercise and are keen to be
associated with the initiative. Some organisations that were reluctant to join
in the beginning have now asked to participate.

It is not yet possible to reach all the data
with a single signing-in. Some data holders insist on a separate user
authorisation procedure. The objective must be to arrive at a single sign –in
for all data.

A study[28]
has shown that private companies collect even more data than public authorities
but these data have not been included in EU initiatives so far. This is partly
because the approach was to move one step at a time and partly because of
concerns about increasing the administrative burden of these private companies.
However since companies with licences to operate offshore are often already
under an obligation in many cases to hand over data to public authorities, a
more structured approach might simplify their work and reduce burden. This
issue should be investigated further.

The initiative meshes well with other EU
initiatives including Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES),
the Data Collection Framework in fisheries and potentially the Marine Framework
Strategy Directive[29].
An impact assessment suggests that it will contribute in a proportionate way to
the competitiveness and innovativeness of the growing European offshore
industry.

Annex 1          Organisations Involved
in ur-EMODnet

country || organisation

Belgium || Flanders Marine Institute/Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee(VLIZ)

|| Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

|| University of Liege - GeoHydrodynamics and Environment Research (ULG)j

Bulgaria || Institute of Oceanology Bulgarian Academy of Science (IO-BAS)

Cyprus || University of Cyprus-Oceanography Centre (OC)

Denmark || Danish Environmental and Planning Agency (BLST)

|| Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI)

|| Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

|| National Environmental Research Institute (NERI-MAR)

Estonia || Geological Survey of Estonia

Finland || Geological Survey of Finland,

France || Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières

|| Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS)

|| Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (Ifremer)

|| Service Hydrographique et Oceanographique de la Marine (SHOM).

Georgia || Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU-DNA)

Germany || Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)

|| Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH-DOD),

|| Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources

|| University of Bremen (UniHB)

Greece || Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR)

International || International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)

|| The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

|| UNEP/GRID-Arendal

Ireland || Geological Survey of Ireland

|| Marine Institute (MI)

Italy || ETT srl

|| Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofísica Sperimentale (OGS)

|| Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA)

Latvia || Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Agency

Lithuania || Lithuania institute of Geology and Geography

Netherlands || ATLIS

|| Deltares

|| Mariene Informatie Service 'MARIS' BV

|| NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

|| Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences/Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KN A W); Netherlands Institute of Ecology; Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology (NIOO-CEME)

Norway || Geological Survey of Norway

|| Norwegian Marine Data Centre - Institute of Marine Research (IMR),

Poland || Polish Geological Institute

Romania || National Institute for Marine Research and Development "Grigore Antipa" (NIMRD)

Russian Federation || All Russian Research Institute of Hydro-meteorological Information - WDC B (RIHMI-WDC)

|| P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Russian Academy of Science (SIO-RAS)

Spain || Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO)

Sweden || Geological Survey of Sweden

|| Sveriges Meteorologiska Och Hydrologiska Institut (SMHI)

|| Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

Ukraine || Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (IBSS NASU

|| Marine Hydro-physical Institute (MHI)

United Kingdom || Joint Nature Conservation Committee Support Co

|| NERC British Oceanographie Data Centre, Liverpool (BODC)

|| NERC, British Geological Survey, Edinburgh (BGS)

|| NERC, National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOC)

United States || Rutgers University; Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS)

[1]               A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive
growth COM(2010) 2020

[2]               All summaries of meetings and
presentations made during them are accessible to everybody through the EU
maritime forum https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/category/161

[3]               http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/documents/implement\_control/fin\_rules/syn\_pub\_rf\_modex\_en.pdf

[4]               COM(2007)
575 final

[5]               COM(2010) 461 final

[6]               SEC(2010) 998

[7]               COM(2010)494 final

[8]               2008/56/EC of  of 17 June
2008

[9]               Macaronesia consists of five
archipelagos,: Azores (Portugal), Canary Islands (Spain), Cape Verde (Cape
Verde), Madeira, including Porto Santo Island and the Desertas Islands
(Portugal), Savage Islands (Portugal), administratively part of the Madeira
Autonomous Region

[10]             A complete list of main
contractors is given in appendix 1. this does not include subcontractors of
whom there are many.

[11]             Directive 2007/2/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)

[12]             Interreg is an initiative that
aims to stimulate cooperation between regions in the European Union. It started
in 1989, and is financed under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The current programme is Interreg IV, covering the period 2007–2013.

[13]             The Baltic, Black Sea and Macaronesia have not yet been
covered

[14]             A digital terrain model is a digital model or
three-dimensional representation of the topography of the sea floor

[15]             Regulation (EU) No 911/2010 of the European Parliament
and of the council of 22 September 2010 on the European Earth monitoring
programme (GMES) and its initial operations (2011 to 2013).

[16]             European Marine Observation and Data Network. Impact
Assessment SEC(2010) 998 final

[17]             The value of the contract is
€45,000

[18]             Details of the group and summaries of meetings can be found
on the open-access part of the EU's Maritime Forum
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/category/161

[19]             Study on Interim Evaluation of European Marine
Observation and Data Network Final Report
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/content/2180

[20]             Summaries of meetings are available on the opena-access
part of the EU's maritime forum https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/category/events/162

[21]             https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/category/events/161

[22]             https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/content/1947

[23]             Directive 2008/56/EC

[24]             Directive 2003/98/EC on the
re-use of public sector information

[25]             This is an interim assessment. This money has not yet
all been spent.

[26]             Analysis and inventory of FP7
marine-related proposals, European Commission ISBN 978-82-79-16288-6

[27]             Council
Regulation (EC) N° 199/2008 of 25 February 2008

[28]             Marine Data Infrastructure Final Report submitted to DG
Maritime Affairs & Fisheries by MRAG Ltd, November 2009

[29]             This has still to be defined further and set up in
practice, including specific labelling of datasets as formally/officially used
for Marine Strategy Framework Directive  assessments.

[Top](#document1)