Data infrastructures | Blue-Cloud 2026

In the European landscape of marine and ocean data management great progress has been made during three decades with developing standards, services, and establishing dedicated infrastructures. These infrastructures provide services for discovery and access to collected marine in-situ and remote sensing data and for ensuring long term stewardship. This has resulted in establishing leading European marine data management infrastructures such as COPERNICUS C3S, COPERNICUS CMEMS, ELIXIR-ENA, EMODnet, Euro-Argo, Argo GDAC, EuroBioImaging, EurOBIS, ICOS-Marine and SeaDataNet. Datasets from these infrastructures are available via the Blue-Cloud Data Discovery & Access Service.

Blue-Cloud federates these infrastructures to create a trusted virtual space where scientists can access the ocean data, tools, services and research outputs they need to perform research in a more efficient way.

The pilot Blue-Cloud project federates the following Blue Data Infrastructures. (BDIs):

EcoTaxa

EcoTaxa is a web application dedicated to the visual exploration and the taxonomic annotation of images that illustrate the beauty of planktonic biodiversity. EcoTaxa was born from the experience developed at Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV) regarding the quantitative, highthroughput imaging of plankton and of the Oceanomics project which covered the exploitation of data collected during the Tara Oceans cruise, including quantitative imaging. It is now developed mainly through the WWWPIC project funded by the Belmont Forum and as part of the Blue-Cloud project.

EMBRC-ERIC

EMBRC is a European research infrastructure that provides researchers and companies with access to marine organisms and the facilities to study them, including experimental facilities and technological platforms.

EMODnet

EMODnet connects a network of over 150 organisations supported by the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy who work together to observe the sea, process the data according to international standards and make that information freely available as interoperable data layers and data products.

EMSO-ERIC

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO) aims to explore the oceans, to gain a better understanding of phenomena happening within and below them, and to explain the critical role that these phenomena play in the broader Earth systems.

Euro-Argo ERIC

The Euro-Argo ERIC allows active coordination and strengthening of the European contribution to the international Argo program. Its main objectives are to provide, deploy and operate the European contribution to the global array of Argo floats (currently around 800 floats, ¼ of the global array) and an enhanced coverage of European seas, to expand towards biogeochemistry, greater depths and high latitudes and to provide access to quality-controlled data and derived products.

EurOBIS – EMODnet Biology

The EMODnet biology is a thematic portal of EMODnet providing free access to data on temporal and spatial distribution of marine species and species traits from all European regional seas. It is built upon the World Register of Marine Species and the European Ocean Biogeographic Information System. EurOBIS was developed by the Flanders Marine Institute in 2004, within the framework of the MarBEF project (MARine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning). It brings together biogeographic data collected within European marine waters, or by European researchers and institutes outside Europe. It focuses on taxonomy and distribution records in space and time and offers a number of online tools to easily query and visualise the data.

European Nucleotide Archive (ENA)

The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) provides a comprehensive open record of the world's nucleotide sequencing information and a platform for the management and analysis of sequence and related data. Covering raw sequencing data, sequence assembly information, functional annotation and a host of further data types, content is measured in millions of taxa, hundreds of thousands of sequenced libraries and petabytes of storage. ENA is operated by the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL – EBI). ENA is designated by the ELIXIR infrastructure both as a Core Data Resource, and a Deposition Database.

ICOS – Marine

ICOS is an international organisation of thirteen European member countries and over 130 greenhouse gas measurement stations aimed at quantifying and understanding the greenhouse gas balance of Europe and neighbouring regions. ICOS data is made available at the Carbon Portal, a one-stop shop for all ICOS data products. The Ocean Thematic Centre is one of four central facilities within the European research infrastructure Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS).

JERICO-RI

The main purpose of JERICO-RI is to enable a sound understanding of the responses of coastal marine systems to natural and anthropogenic stressors. To do so, JERICO-RI adopts a systematic approach to monitor, observe, explore and analyse coastal marine systems in order to reach reliable information of their structure and functioning in the context of global change. JERICO- RI encompasses the whole range of environmental sciences, technologies, and data sciences.

SeaDataNet

SeaDataNet is a major pan-European infrastructure for managing, indexing 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 Centres (NODCs), major marine research institutes, UNESCO-IOC, ICES, and EC-JRC.

SIOS

SIOS is a collaborative effort to develop and maintain a regional observational system for long-term measurements in and around Svalbard, addressing Earth System Science questions related to Global Change.

SOCAT

The Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis activity for quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO₂ (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations by the international marine carbon research community. SOCAT data is publicly available, discoverable and citable. SOCAT enables quantification of the ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification and evaluation of ocean biogeochemical models. SOCAT represents a milestone in biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy.

WEkEO

WEkEO: Part of Copernicus Data and Information Access Services (DIAS), improving data access for innovation, science, business, and policy.