SeaDataNet, panEuropean infrastructure for marine and ocean data management and its relations with EMODnet, Blue-Cloud2026, and DTO

SeaDataNet is a major pan-European infrastructure for managing and providing access to marine data sets and data products, acquired by European organisations from research cruises and other observational activities in European coastal marine waters, regional seas and the global ocean. Founding partners are National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs), major marine research institutes, and ICES. The SeaDataNet network, initiated in the nineties, expanded over time its network of data centres and infrastructure, during a series of dedicated EU RTD projects, and by engaging as core data management infrastructure and network in leading European Commission initiatives such as the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet), Copernicus Marine Service (CMS), and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). These facilitated ongoing development and evolution of the SeaDataNet technical infrastructure, standards, tools, and services, while managing and further expanding a large network of connected data centres and data providers.

SeaDataNet develops, governs and promotes common standards, vocabularies, software tools, and services for marine data management, which are freely available from its portal and widely adopted and used by many communities and projects. A core SeaDataNet service is the CDI data discovery and access service which provides online unified discovery and access to vast resources of data sets, managed by 115+ connected SeaDataNet data centres from 34 countries around European seas, both from research and monitoring organisations. Currently, it gives access to more than 3 Million data sets, originating from 1000+ organisations in Europe, covering physical, geological, chemical, biological and geophysical data, and acquired in European waters and global oceans. Standard metadata and data formats are used, supported by an ever-increasing set of controlled vocabularies to mark up the metadata profiles in a semantically controlled way, resulting in rich and highly FAIR metadata and data sets. Services include online CDI catalogue, cloud-based data cache, and online shopping mechanism. FAIRness is further amplified by machine-to-machine services.  

SeaDataNet provides core services in EMODnet Chemistry, Bathymetry, Physics, and Ingestion for bringing together and harmonizing large amounts of marine data sets, which are used by EMODnet groups for generating thematic data products. Examples: Digital Terrain Model for all European seas (Bathymetry), and European aggregated and validated data collections for eutrophication, contamination, and marine litter (Chemistry). These products are very popular and find their way to many users from government, research, industry, and public. SeaDataNet is also back-office for EMODnet Ingestion, reaching out and achieving input from data providers that are not (yet) participating in the European data exchange.

SeaDataNet is well engaged in EOSC projects, such as EOSC-FUTURE and the Blue-Cloud project. A pilot deployed a versatile cyber platform federating multidisciplinary data repositories, analytical tools, and computing facilities for exploring and demonstrating the potential of cloud based open science for ocean sustainability. A further evolution is underway into a Federated European Ecosystem and EOSC Blue Node to deliver FAIR & Open data and analytical services, instrumental for deepening research of oceans, coastal & inland waters. This is also highly important for the Digital Twins of the Oceans (DTO) initiative.