The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) is a long-term European marine data service that unlocks the abundance of existing but often fragmented European marine data and observations and makes data and data products optimally accessible for use by government bodies, scientists and maritime companies. A Marine Knowledge initiative from the European Commission, EMODnet has become an essential tool for scientists, engineers, managers and policy-makers to generate the information necessary to improve our knowledge of the seas and to support sustainable economic growth and employment.
In practice, EMODnet consists of a network of more than 120 organisations supported by the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy which work together to observe the sea, process the data according to international standards and make that information freely available as interoperable data layers, data products and services.
Since 2013, the EMODnet Secretariat is hosted at the InnovOcean site in Ostend by VLIZ with the support from the Flemish Government. VLIZ provides office space for six EMODnet Secretariat staff members and also provide IT support to all EMODnet Secretariat staff. VLIZ also hosts and leads the technical development and continuous updates of the EMODnet DG MARE service for in situ marine data management (emodnet.ec.europa.eu). In 2022, EMODnet and VLIZ, under the auspices of the Central Portal Technical Team, successfully delivered the new unified EMODnet portal, which provides one point-of-access to the EMODnet data and data products eliminating the necessity of users to navigate to multiple data portals in search of the marine data they need.
The EMODnet portal gives users access to interoperable in situ marine data and data products of EMODnet across seven thematic disciplines (i.e. bathymetry, geology, biology, chemistry, human activities, seabed habitats and physics), to information on the regional activities (EMODnet Sea-basin Checkpoints) and to data services (map viewer, catalogue, ERDDAP, etc.). VLIZ coordinates the ingestion and management of in situ marine biological data in EMODnet and the creation of data products.
In 2022, VLIZ continued supporting the EMODnet Secretariat with the content development and co-organisation of the EMODnet Technical Working Group meetings, and representing EMODnet at European and international fora, among others, through the co-organisation of a side event on Marine Data Interoperability at the UN Ocean Conference 2022 (27 June-1 July 2022).
