T10-4
Since 2008, the NGO Objectif Sciences International (OSI), in close collaboration with leading academic institutions such as IRD, IFREMER, and CNRS, has been designing, implementing, and supporting participatory research projects that directly engage citizens in oceanographic research across coastal zones, inshore waters, and the open sea. At this global meeting, we aim to present a detailed analysis of the types and diverse formats that participatory research projects on ocean-related topics can take, drawing from field experience accumulated between 2008 and 2023 across the Pacific and North Atlantic Bassins, as well as Mozambique Channel.
This presentation seeks to provide a model of participatory science formats applied to ocean science, highlighting their specificities in terms of implementation, research themes, and expected or achievable outcomes. OSI has developed a wide range of approaches—from citizen data collection in marine environments to marine mammal ethology and the study of coastal and underwater ecosystems—demonstrating the rich variety of participatory formats that can be adapted to each mission's logistical, technical, and safety constraints and contexts. We propose an analysis of citizen involvement models within participatory research. In some projects, citizens act as co-researchers engaged in every stage of the research process, while in others, technical or safety restrictions may limit their participation to specific stages of the research. This comprehensive overview also highlights the diversity of audiences involved in these projects: children, teenagers, adults, enthusiasts, and ocean advocates, each contributing at their own level to common objectives. We will discuss both the successes and limitations of each model, along with the adjustments made to optimize results based on the research needs and contextual demands of each mission.
This presentation offers an “open-source” compilation of formats and field testimonials, made accessible to the scientific community and participatory science stakeholders. This sharing effort serves a dual purpose: to facilitate the scalable development of citizen-led research initiatives on ocean, and to enable multidisciplinary and international collaborations to realistically position themselves within the framework of vibrant scientific actions in line with today’s critical oceanic challenges.
How to cite: Larose, C.: Formats for Participatory Research on the Ocean: An Overview of Field Insights and Scientific Prospects, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-351, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-351, 2025.
Plankton, a diverse group of aquatic organisms, make Earth livable, regulate aquatic life, and provide benefits to human societies such as access to clean water, food security, and well-being. They also support economies and inspire biotechnological innovations. However, their important role is often not being recognized. We review the value of plankton and present it across six themes of human interest: “Biogeochemistry,” “Ecology,” “Climate,” “Evolution of Science,” “Economy,” and “Culture, Recreation, and Well-being”. Additionally, we provide examples of plankton indicators used in policy frameworks and recommendations for enhancing understanding of their value through long-term sustainable research and monitoring. Guided by the 2022 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services assessment, we introduce the six themes under the Life Framework of Values to offer a comprehensive summary of the significance of plankton to humanity. In this review we raise awareness towards the value of plankton to humanity for it to serve as an informative guide for aquatic professionals, policymakers, and anyone interested in plankton.
How to cite: Lindemann, C., Palacz, A., and Grigoratou, M. and the Value of Plankton Working Group: The immeasurable value of plankton to humanity, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-1185, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-1185, 2025.
Oceanic and coastal socio-ecosystems are complex in their functioning, interactions and dynamics at several scales. They are linked to issues such as access to resources and spaces, heritage and identity, sovereignty, security, energy, climate, biodiversity conservation, regulation and protection against hazards. However, they are under increasing pressure: coastal development, urbanisation, over-exploitation of resources, contamination, climate change, etc. Inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches are essential to understand the complexity of interactions within these socio-ecosystems, taking into account their many representations and uses, and to co-construct strategies aimed at their resilience and sustainability.
The emergence of a cohesive transdisciplinary community of stakeholders, within and beyond the scientific sphere, involved in ocean sciences in the Global South, and considering the coast and the ocean through the prism of the societal considerations, is one of the solutions that will make possible a response to these challenges. Numerous projects co-constructed by the actors and partners of the Institute of Research for Sustainable Development (IRD) contribute to this approach, particularly within the IRD Coastal and Ocean Knowledge Community. Three projects illustrate the different aspects of this approach.
The PADDLE project exemplified our commitment to addressing these challenges. Marine environments face growing pressures from traffic, coastal land-use changes, seabed exploitation, fishing, tourism, and renewable energy development. Sustainably managed oceans can drive economic growth and help meet global targets like poverty and hunger reduction. New frameworks are needed to regulate marine resource use. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) aims to balance human uses and conservation. PADDLE addressed the mismatch between EU policy frameworks and Southern countries' needs, training students and policymakers in MSP and providing critical insights into its opportunities and limitations.
The DiDEM project looked at improving the dialogue between science and decision-making and the governance of oceans and coasts in several countries in the western Indian Ocean: Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania and Kenya. The project has experimented with approaches for co-constructing solutions for managing maritime areas that respect ecosystem dynamics (nature-based solutions), are adapted to socio-political contexts and are as inclusive as possible of the most vulnerable ocean stakeholders. Examples include participatory observatories on the dynamics of deltas, with a view to a more consensual and better coastal planning, with socio-environmental flows from upstream dams ; marine educational areas ; participatory observatories on coastal erosion and collaborative tools for simulating the consequences of rising sea levels.
The LOTUS international joint laboratory was born out of the joint recognition by Vietnamese and French collaborators of the critical need to develop solid multidisciplinary expertise for the study and monitoring of coastal and oceanic aquatic socio-ecosystems in Vietnam, in order to provide sustainable responses and solutions to the socio-environmental challenges faced by the country. To meet this need, we have built a reference research and training center, based on the sharing of knowledge, methodologies and tools about the different components of these socio-ecosystems. Together we build interdisciplinary projects, train PhD students, and have co-authored more than 100 articles. The recent Vietnamese-French PLUME campaign, is a major achievement of this co-construction work.
How to cite: Duvail, S., Herrmann, M., Bonnin, M., Lanco, S., Pringault, O., and Inthavong, E.: Mobilising transdisciplinary approaches to co-construct sustainable and equitable trajectories for coastal and oceanic socio-ecosystems: examples of approaches developed at IRD, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-356, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-356, 2025.
Ocean sprawl—the proliferation of engineered infrastructure along rapidly urbanising coastlines— is transforming marine ecosystems, simplifying their structure and leading to the loss of critical habitat complexity, biodiversity, and diminished ecological functions. This research addresses these impacts through a non-conforming, transdisciplinary approach to coastal ecological engineering that prioritises innovative co-creation with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) to enhance biodiversity and early stage functionality of urban shorelines. Based in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, our consortium integrates scientific, heritage, and ecomusicology perspectives to co-design nature-based, biodegradable structures using the native plant Cyperus textilis, while embedding community values and traditional knowledge throughout the research process. This presentation highlights best practices in transdisciplinary action research, illustrating how cultural expressions, such as weaving, can reframe coastal conservation efforts as both heritage preservation and a mean of youth engagement, fostering long-term stewardship. Guided by Ubuntu principles, we established a framework grounded in equity and inclusion through trust-based relationships, local economic engagement, and educational material co-translated in isiXhosa. Reflecting on the successes and challenges, this project demonstrates a vibrant science-to-action transdisciplinary model, which aligns the too often forgotten IPLC voices with sustainable innovation and low-cost ecological solutions, advancing inclusive ocean decision-making and ecosystem rehabilitation practices rooted in community identity and heritage.
How to cite: Porri, F. and the IMIsEE team: Ubuntu action for recovery of urban shorelines: a transdisciplinary approach to coastal ecological engineering in South Africa, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-255, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-255, 2025.
In the context of the FAO's Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF) Voluntary Guidelines, inclusive management and participatory research approaches to SSF have been encouraged. To date such initiatives have been limited at the sub-national and national levels. The European CORECRABE action research project (2019-2023) addressed that challenge in mangrove crab export-fisheries in Madagascar. Our study aimed at assessing local stakeholders’ learning and participation in the processes of collaborative management of these fisheries through this transdisciplinary research. We first evaluated the technical and relational learning of 52 stakeholders who participated in the project’s regional working groups and/or the national workshop organized from 2020 to 2022. Then, in 2023, we interviewed 300 local SSF actors (fishers, buyers, and community leaders) within 77 focus groups (separated by occupation, age, and gender) in 12 coastal villages involved or not in the project activities. Their fishery knowledge, project participation, social network construction, and management perceptions were collected. The actors’ learning from the project workshops and village-based in situ activities was analyzed, as well as the transfer of knowledge to and from the local communities at the regional and national levels. The study highlights the best practices (e.g., fishery diagnostic co-production) and the challenges (e.g., limited diffusion within villages) of transdisciplinary approach associated with learning mechanisms at varying scales for operationalizing SSF co-management.
How to cite: Beckensteiner, J., Razafimalala, N., Randrianasolo, L., Zafimamatrapehy, D., Queste, J., Rabemananjara, Z. H., and Léopold, M.: Stakeholder learning in transdisciplinary research: application in the mangrove fisheries in Madagascar, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-572, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-572, 2025.
Economic losses derived from climate change do not spare remote areas for which tourism is an important sustainability tool.
Scientific knowledge represents an opportunity for both enabling users to participate in conservation and transfer updated data into education while integrating patrimonial knowledge.
COPAS Coastal is a 20 year experienced oceanographic center that has been working in fjords and channels of Chilean Patagonia sin 2008. Data gathered over the years has translated in a good understanding of the oceanographic features and vulnerability to climate change of these pristine areas that include some of the fastest retreating glaciers in the world. Oceanographic arrays of sensors and buoys provided data on currents and temperature variability while diversity surveys helped build a complete ecosystem model that could be translated into cultural patrimony.
This is the essence of the CIAYT experience (center of environmental and touristic interpretation) in Caleta tortel in Patagonia. Inaugurated in 2024, it has effectively boosted local tourist activity while integrating tour operators into climate change outreach and awareness therefore increasing sustainability. Effective educational and cultural tools, technology and patrimonial landscape combine in a unique transfer of knowledge that is constantly being updated by scientists and maintained by local communities.
How to cite: fernandez, C., Gomez, P., and Pantoja, S.: Meeting science and culture in extreme environments , One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-341, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-341, 2025.
Achieving the UN Ocean Decade's objectives necessitates coordinated, harmonized, and interoperable ocean observations and analyses across disciplines and scales. Central to this is adopting standardized methodologies—including guidelines, policies, protocols, and specifications—that underpin collaboration, data interoperability, and sustainable ocean management.
Best practices in ocean observing offer significant benefits; shared, well-documented methods support global and regional interoperability, capacity development and innovation across the ocean science value chain—from requirements setting, through observations and data management, to end-user applications and societal impacts.
The Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS) is a transformative initiative of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC) facilitating the creation, archiving, discovery, and dissemination of methods, best practices, and standards. OBPS addresses the need for reliable, interoperable ocean data use, supporting a comprehensive global observing network from the deep ocean to the coast. It fosters knowledge transfer and capacity development, particularly for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), addressing barriers to diversity and equity.
By focusing on methods standardization—a cornerstone of ocean activities—OBPS promotes inclusivity and collaboration across the ocean community. It interconnects all Ocean Decade Programmes , enabling the creation, sharing, and dissemination of accessible methodologies and best practices. This ensures greater participation of diverse stakeholders while supporting sustainable ocean management and innovation.
OBPS is carrying out different activities to fill existing gaps in creating, sharing, and interconnecting ocean observing knowledge and infrastructure globally:
- Training and Capacity Development among individuals and countries to develop and apply ocean best practices.
- Development of a Maturity Model for Practices [1] based on a five-level model differentiates between 'good' and 'best' practices, guiding practitioners toward continuous improvement.
- Establishing a Federated System for Methodology Sharing through distributed systems to allow organizations to maintain autonomy over assets, enhancing metadata sharing across repositories. This initiative enhances cross-indexing and discovery across repositories under the IOC OBPS and the Ocean Data and Information System (ODIS), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
- Linking Datasets and Methodologies for Traceability with the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) that links datasets and methodologies in OBPS, aiming to expand to global repositories like the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS).
- Supporting the contributions of the OBPS OceanPractices Ocean Decade Programme to Ocean Decade vision and programmes
OBPS plays a crucial role in enhancing the knowledge generation process and ensuring that best practices are widely accessible and adopted to ultimately support informed decision-making processes in ocean management. By linking maturity-assessed practices through a federated system of methodologies, OBPS fosters a cultural shift that places ocean knowledge ahead of policy.
[1] Mantovani C, et al (2024) An ocean practices maturity model: from good to best practices. Front. Mar. Sci. 11:1415374. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1415374
How to cite: Munoz, C., Zitoun, R., Pearlman, J., Garello, R., Petihakis, G., Hoerstmann, C., Rimmer, T., Simpson, P., and Cabrera, P.: Ocean Best Practices: Advancing Interoperability and Equity for a Sustainable Ocean, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-1177, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-1177, 2025.
Posters on site | Poster area "La Baleine"
Use of scientific information in evidence-based decision-making is critically important in addressing coastal and ocean management concerns. In an ecosystem-based management context, ensuring that the “right” information (reliable) is available can be particularly challenging as the information often resides in different organizations with different management mandates. Many governmental and intergovernmental organizations have used a
range of approaches, including technical advisory committees and working groups, to facilitate multidisciplinary input into the development of appropriate policies and management practices. This study examined the roles of multiple stakeholders participating in technical working groups that assist in decision-making for marine fisheries management in Belize, a coastal country in Central America. Through interviews with members of three
working groups – the Spawning Aggregation Working Group, the Managed Access Working Group, and the National Hicatee Conservation and Monitoring Network – and decision-makers in the Belize Fisheries Department, information production processes and pathways for information uptake into policy were investigated. Major characteristics of communication at the science-policy interface associated with each working group were
revealed. Important communication enablers and barriers were identified related to the operation of the working groups, such as membership commitment and resource availability, which influenced knowledge exchange within and outside the groups. Based on the results, a set of requirements for the creation and operation of effective working groups was formulated with regard to requisite inputs, the operational processes, and the types
and uses of the information outputs of the groups. These requirements serve as a foundation for development of indicators of the effectiveness of working groups in environmental management contexts that support communication and decision-making at science-policy interfaces.
How to cite: Eck, K., Soomai, S., and MacDonald, B.: On the development of criteria for determining the effectiveness oftechnical working groups: A case study about information processes inmarine conservation and fisheries management in Belize, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-127, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-127, 2025.
Ocean acidification (OA) due to the CO₂ emissions from human activities is a serious threat to marine life and the overall health of ecosystems. As OA changes ocean chemistry, it forces marine organisms to spend more energy just to survive in these new and challenging conditions. This stress is especially noticeable in organisms with shells and skeletons. However, the impact likely extends beyond individual species, potentially disrupting entire marine communities and the delicate balance within these ecosystems.
Traditionally, scientists have studied OA through two main approaches: by measuring variations in the ocean's carbonate system and by running controlled lab experiments on biological responses. While these methods have provided valuable insights, they are not enough to capture the complex, real-world impacts of OA on diverse marine environments. One complementary approach is to observe such changes in natural environment over time.
Recognizing the urgency of this issue, IOC-UNESCO has initiated a joint project aimed at creating a comprehensive system for tracking and understanding the biological impacts of OA across various ecosystems. This project, guided by the work of the biological working group of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) and its publication (Widdicombe et al. 20231), seeks to build a strong foundation for assessing OA's global effects by combining chemical and biological observation data, directly supporting global initiatives like SDG 14.3 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
The project follows a structured, multi-phase approach, beginning with a targeted set of sites with long-term carbonate system data and extensive biological and oceanographic observations. This first phase aims to test the idea that rates of biological and carbonate chemistry changes should correlate. It would also allow to isolate biological responses to OA, identify sensitive biological traits, and conduct causality analyses to detect OA impacts within biological data. The focus is on five key biological and ecological traits — calcification, primary production, growth, biodiversity, and genetic adaptation — that have demonstrated links to OA and provide a foundation for understanding its effects on marine life.
In the second phase, this approach will be applied to additional sites with comprehensive datasets to identify cases where OA may be the primary driver of biological changes. This phase will also explore deviations from expected patterns due to other stressors, such as heatwaves, warming, and nutrient enrichment.
The final phase will analyze sites where only biological data are available, assessing whether OA impacts can be identified in the absence of direct carbonate system measurements. This analysis aims to expand the scope of OA impact assessments by identifying regions where OA potentially influences biological traits and community structures.
Ultimately, this project aims to develop innovative observation strategies that integrate biological and chemical monitoring, contributing to globally applicable best practices for OA impact assessment. This will support informed decision-making and help shape adaptation and mitigation strategies essential for safeguarding marine ecosystems.
1Widdicombe et al. 2023, DOI: 10.5194/os-19-101-2023
How to cite: Suhareva, N., Enevoldsen, H. O., Isensee, K., Hansen, P. J., Dupont, S., and Widdicombe, S.: A collaborative effort to integrated biological and chemical ocean acidification observations, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-330, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-330, 2025.
Environmental challenges in the marine environment, such as pollution, habitat degradation, overexploitation, natural hazard and impacts of climate change, are intrinsically complex and involve interacting natural and human factors. Therefore, interdisciplinarity is necessary to address these challenges, as it allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between human societies and marine ecosystems. In this perspective, Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) provide crucial insights into how communities perceive, value, and impact ocean environments, thereby fostering more inclusive and effective conservation strategies. This communication explores the importance of this interdisciplinary approach and highlights various international initiatives, and those of Ocean Sciences Institute (OCEAN, Aix-Marseille University) as a telling example in bridging the gap between marine science and SSH.
In recent decades, Institutions and Universities worldwide have been increasingly committed to embedding interdisciplinarity in marine sciences, including students and researchers training to address global marine issues more holistically and effectively. Our experience at the OCEAN Institute indicated that such structure can sustain interdisciplinary research and education projects involved in studying socio-ecological systems. By examining both ecological dynamics and social dimensions, OCEAN aims to facilitates a deeper understanding of human-environment interactions and community engagement in conservation efforts. For instance, OCEAN has financed since 2021 various research programs that successfully integrated natural sciences and SSH. Such projects intersect, among others, marine pollution and history, social geography and chemistry, ecology and environmental psychology, or education program combining marine science and environmental law. Regarding educational challenges, we found that OCEAN’s interdisciplinary summer schools dealing with marine protected areas or plastic pollution may efficiently prepare future researchers and professional to navigate both natural and social sciences, enhancing problem-solving skills and promoting a transversal approach to marine conservation.
In this communication, we provide an overview and feedback on how university institutes can mobilize different disciplines, and a comparison of this experience with initiatives carried out on an international scale. We also discuss this experience by providing a critical dimension on the successes and obstacles encountered. We propose that the evaluation of the success of a project should focus on how interdisciplinarity has enabled to shed light on a research question by bridging knowledge gaps, and/or by adding an applied dimension to the research results, particularly when addressed to stakeholders (transdisciplinarity). Scientific interdisciplinarity also faces conceptual and methodological challenges when combining divergent paradigms and methods. Interdisciplinary work may struggle to fit within the traditional valuation system of scientific research. As a result, such an approach may be time-consuming and challenging to manage, leading marine scientists to consider SSH as subsidiary rather than a core dimension of research projects. Hence the importance of an institutional support such as the one provided by Aix-Marseille University through the Mission for Interdisciplinarity, which has developed an original tool for designing and carrying out an interdisciplinary research project. In this communication, we propose simple guidelines based on our real “learn by doing” experience to encourage institutions and scientists to adopt a reflexive approach to their practices, embracing collaboration, open communication, and flexible methodologies.
How to cite: Tribot, A.-S., Nonchez, F., Sanial, V., Sabatier, F., Reiche, S., and Sempéré, R.: Fostering interdisciplinary approaches to marine science: insights from Ocean Sciences Institute (OCEAN, Aix-Marseille University), One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-358, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-358, 2025.
Rivers significantly influence coastal ecosystems by delivering freshwater, nutrients, and sediments that support biodiversity and help counteract beach erosion. However, they also act as conduits for pollution, transporting harmful chemicals and waste, including marine litter and microplastics, from inland areas to the ocean.
Rivers also create complex hydrodynamic interactions with coastal circulation, affecting water movement, stratification, mixing patterns, and the formation of fronts. These dynamics intensify during extreme events like heavy rainfall, floods, and storms, which can increase the volume and speed of river flow, leading to greater impacts on coastal areas. Climate change compounds these effects by increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
For these reasons, it is crucial that state-of-the-art operational coastal numerical models incorporate near-real-time river data to improve the quality of hydrodynamic forecasts. These forecasts are essential for supporting decision-making in environmental protection and search-and-rescue operations during extreme events.
To meet these needs, the EMODnet River Node has been designed to provide a dedicated hydrological service for the coastal community. It offers free access to near-real-time river data in a standardized format, adhering to the FAIR principles, all on a single platform. The system collects data from the hydrologic station nearest to each river's coastal area, excluding stations influenced by tides. The service currently provides river flow data for all stations and, where available, water temperature and water level data. It integrates information from over 1,000 stations, supplied by 40 national and regional water administrations across 22 countries on three continents: Europe, North America, and South America. In the near future, the service aims to continue expanding its coverage and include additional river data, such as biogeochemical information.
How to cite: Campuzano, F., Novellino, A., Gorringe, P., Fonteles, C., Figueiredo, L., and Alba, M.: EMODnet river node: a near real time hydrological service designed for the coastal community, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-776, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-776, 2025.
EMSO is a distributed infrastructure dedicated to the long-term, real-time monitoring of environmental processes in the oceans, covering ocean dynamics, géohazards, and marine ecosystems functioning. To achieve these goals, EMSO operates a network of high-technology platforms deployed from the surface to the seafloor based on multiparametric observation. EMSO develops dedicated data services and products providing valuable insights of climate change on the ocean processes, human activity on ocean sounds and natural hazards and early warnings capability. This abstract focuses on the advanced work that has been achieved in marine biodiversity based on automated imaging recognition and citizen science. A range of deep-sea time series of EOVs such as pressure, temperature and biogeochemical variables (O2, ...), algorithm dedicated to environmental variables using the distributed acoustic sensing technology, providing invaluable spatial information on deep sea dynamics, seismologic data allowing the capability early warnings but also derived variables such as temperature, ocean sounds.
How to cite: Lefèvre, D., Beranzoli, L., Maslo, A., Bozzano, R., Colaco, A., Frangoulis, C., Garziglia, S., Gaughan, P., Lo Bue, N., Miserocchi, S., Sigloch, K., Skjelvan, I., Toma, D. M., Tutuianu, R., and Puillat, I.: Multi parametric Time series acquired in the EMSO pan- European Research Infrastructure – a powerful asset fostering the European Research Area, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-1196, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-1196, 2025.
Ocean reanalyses are reconstructed past ocean states by combining ocean numerical models and observations through data assimilation techniques. They are key in the seamless ocean information value chain. Thanks to their temporal and spatial consistency, continuity, and high accuracy, ocean reanalyses are widely used for ocean and climate studies in the academic and private sectors.
The MER-EP project we present here is building on previous ocean reanalysis intercomparison exercises such as the Ocean Reanalyses Intercomparison Project (ORA-IP), and on the joint efforts of the ocean prediction community (Copernicus Marine Service, Oceanpredict/ForeSea/OP-DCC), the ocean and climate modelling research community (CLIVAR/GSOP), and on the Ocean Physics and Climate panel of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS/OOPC) research programme.
Previous intercomparison exercises of ocean reanalyses have targeted specific variables, such as ocean heat content, mixed layer depth, and ocean transport, to assess the consistency and discrepancies among various ocean reanalysis products. Future intercomparisons should complement this approach including more systematic regional focus and evaluating different ocean reanalyses to determine their quality and fitness-for-purpose for specific applications and whenever possible provide insights on their conditions of use (eg. which type of reanalysis with which resolution or resolved processes for which application, in which region, etc…).
Ocean reanalysis producers, relevant scientific programmes and users are willing to get involved in a new evaluation and intercomparison exercise including new variables, new point-of-views (user oriented) and new focus areas, with studies focused on relevant use cases.
In this context, the primary objective of MER-EP is to improve our knowledge of the ocean by understanding and ultimately improving the reliability and usability of global and regional ocean reanalyses, including physics, waves, biogeochemistry, and sea ice, based on representative and high-priority use cases identified after extensive discussions with academic and private sectors ocean reanalyses users. The corollary objective is to improve our knowledge of the capabilities of similar forecasting systems and of emerging AI forecasting systems trained using these reanalysis datasets, at the global and regional scales, and for a range of applications.
How to cite: Drévillon, M. and the MER-EP partners: The Marine Environment Reanalyses Evaluation Project MER-EP, towards an improved knowledge of the global ocean environment of the past decades, to support ocean reporting and ocean prediction. , One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-1505, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-1505, 2025.
Bay of Marseille. We are in the salty waters bordering a metropolis of one million inhabitants, flanked to the north by an industrial-port complex and to the south by the Calanques National Park, at stake with massive tourism. In this liquid, shifting, unstable space, porous to the city and the rest of the world, humans, cargo ships, cables, fishes, invertebrates, and algaes circulate, entangle and aggregate beneath the horizon in invisible and inaudible ways (Tsing, 2013).
What do we perceive of underwater anthropogenic pressures? How are anthropogenic pressures on marine ecosystems perceived and understood by sea users? How can we make perceptible the entanglements being constructed between human societies and marine living worlds?
Based on research conducted within the framework of the interdisciplinary project Préshumer (CNRS-MITI), which brings together oceanographers and anthropologists around the issue of representations of the underwater space, and data from a multimodal ethnographic survey, this presentation focuses on the perception of the coastal sea by sea users in the Bay of Marseille.
This paper will also examine perceptions and representations of multispecies interactions in a context of direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures - varied domestic and industrial pollutions, exogen species invasion, mass mortality due to underwater heat waves, extension of activities increasing noise - but also in a context of nature-based programs of care and restoration.
The goal is to explore the potential of sound and image to experiment with new ways of describing pollution and disturbances in marine ecosystems, and to question their audible/invisible, visible/invisible nature for humans and other living worlds.
Attempting to adopt a “wet ontology” (Steinberg & Peters 2015) and approaching marine interactions through sounds and images, it challenges sensitive perception of space, time, human, non-human and life (Helmreich 2015).
Through methodological experimentation at sea, mobilizing hydrophones, go-pro cameras and collaborative approaches of audio and visual recordings, this paper explores how modification of perceptions at sea displaces researchers and actors and engage them in new forms of relationality (Feld 2010) with elusive living beings. It to think through saltwater, about reciprocal attachments in the marine environment and the possibility of a shared future. Methodological and epistemological questions which will be discussed together with images and sound extracts.
How to cite: Darbouret, A.: Interactions between marine living worlds and human societies: perception, representation, mediation., One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-497, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-497, 2025.
