Ocean S&T Spotlight - April 2019

CIOOS

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), in partnership with the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR), is spearheading the development of a Canadian Integrated Ocean Observation System (CIOOS) that brings together and leverages existing Canadian and international ocean observation data into a national data system. CIOOS will improve coordination and collaboration among data producers, ensure data and metadata interoperability, improve access to existing information, and enable discovery and reuse of data.

Three regional associations (RAs) have been established: Pacific, St. Lawrence, and Atlantic. The RAs will collaborate with regional data providers and users to ensure interoperable data management and dissemination, and are currently developing regional websites for region-specific data access. The national web platform will be the central access point to all Canadian data, where visualization tools will allow data discovery as well as redirection to regional portals.

As a community initiative, CIOOS encourages your participation in all of the future steps of its development. As such, we encourage you to get in touch with your regional contacts and watch out for upcoming CIOOS workshops. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions and follow us on Twitter @cioos_siooc to stay in the loop.


Research Vessel Needs in Atlantic Canada

The Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR) released a report outlining a serious gap between the amount of time researchers need to spend at sea performing valuable offshore research and the availability of suitable vessels. Canada’s research vessel capacity is suffering from a rapidly aging and overextended fleet, with already-limited ship time reduced further as vessel are retired. While a program to replace the aging fleet exists, it is not expected to result in an increased capacity or days at sea for researchers and their students. The report on the “Assessment of Needs and Opportunities for Research Vessel Use in Atlantic Canada” identifies a major problem affecting Canada’s government, universities, private sector and NGOs alike. The report also highlights that the problems are not unsurmountable and suggests practical ways to move forward, which will require cooperation and willingness to do things differently. MEOPAR is working with a broad range of stakeholders to develop a national action plan to address the issue of research vessel capacity in Canada. If you have any feedback on the report and/or are interested in joining the national action plan effort, please contact Rodrigo Menafra.


Upcoming Ocean-Related Events

Find out more about what is going on! Visit the ORCA Platform and follow us on Twitter @CanOceanSci


 

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