Aquatic scientists under water - it’s much more than just fun

Aquatic research is often recognized as the last real adventure with dedicated scientists sailing on famous research vessels to even remotest areas like the Arctic or Antarctica taking samples with highly sophisticated scientific equipment. Such cruises or even more, scientists in submarines or ROVs are eye-catchers and get a high level of attention in the scientific, public and political community. In contrast, there is a comparatively small group of scientists which indeed physically enter the aquatic ecosystem and do science there - the group of diving scientists.  

Most surprisingly, this small group of scientists is sometimes not well recognized in science. Very often, scientific divers are assumed to take up their hobby and have mainly fun under water instead of doing serious scientific work. We - the scientific diver community - are often confronted with statements like “oh, you can be outside and can dive the whole day long, I have to stand the entire day in the lab. Your work must be like holydays”. Most of these colleagues have never been out the entire day in a bulky drysuit, spending hours and hours on a small boat while the colleague is under water doing fine tuned work in the three-dimensional space having the air to survive in tanks on the back. Often these colleagues have never spend 6 or more hours outside in a steady swell or with outside temperatures below 0°C of above 30°C and 100% humidity - without a private toilet - on a 6 m long RIB-boat.

In this talk, we present the well harmonized European standards for doing excellent science under water, the respective European and German national bodies for scientific diving, as well as the required and recommended occupational safety standards and procedures for a successful, safe and efficient scientific work under water. In contrast, we also stress some possible reasons why doing science under water as diving scientist is, most  surprisingly, much less accepted and established in science as doing aquatic science from “outside”, e.g. from a ship floating at the surface.