Join the EuroSITES
mailing list

EuroSITES Work Package Summaries

WP1: Existing Architecture
Objective: To describe the status of the present European capability to make fixed point and sustained time-series observations of the ocean interior and sub/seafloor.

WP2: Global Integration and Future Vision
Objective: To assess the status of the European fixed point observatories in the global network and to recommend a route map for such observing capacity in the year 2025.

WP3: Infrastructure Development; Ocean Interior to Seafloor
Objective: To enhance the infrastructure of existing European ocean interior observatories. The focus of this WP is firstly to upgrade the observing capability in the ocean interior at those sites where it is currently less well developed. Tasks will focus on properties such as temperature and nutrients which exert a powerful influence on the oceanic system and are likely to exhibit important variability with time (either seasonal or at longer time scales). The second focus is to deploy recently developed sensors which will in the future become standard features of a world class monitoring network. The relevance of these variables in the water column to the structure and function of the underlying seafloor will at all times be considered.

WP4: Infrastructure Development; Seafloor to Ocean Interior
Objective: To establish a small number of integrated seafloor observatories which address the environmental variables that are considered to be of the highest priority for future monitoring networks. (This will be carried out in close collaboration with existing and anticipated FP programmes). Close attention will be paid to the water column variables that are relevant to such observations. This WP is addressed in 4 distinct tasks.

WP5: Data Management and Knowledge Transfer
Objective: Manage all data obtained at the observatories, ensuring the highest standards of quality control, metadata, formatting and accessibility to a variety of target groups and to work towards encompassing not only data captured during the project but also data discovery, cataloguing and processing of historic data from EuroSITES observatories. The overarching consideration will be to secure the value of the data for perpetuity by developing and implementing common standards, whilst adhering to relevant Community policy including the INSPIRE directive and GEOSS that are produced within the time-scales of EuroSITES.

WP6: Management and Coordination
Objective: To manage effectively the EuroSITES partnership to maximise the production of results in the most cost effective manner and to the proposed timescales.