Ocean Decade Laboratory - Blue-Cloud: Developing a virtual environment for open science to tackle ocean challenges

Ocean Decade Laboratories - An Accessible Ocean (Full programme, 10-12 May 2022) 

The Blue-Cloud platform federates data and services from existing European marine data infrastructures and e-infrastructures within the Blue-Cloud framework, enabling researchers to find, access, share, combine and reuse quality data across disciplines and countries.

Stakeholders are invited to directly test our services and exploit the data available in Blue-Cloud!

In this Ocean Decade satellite activity, we presented three practical use cases from the international marine research community that were awarded at the Blue-Cloud Hackathon in February 2022. These applications are currently exploiting the Blue-Cloud platform to expand and improve digital solutions for a range of crucial global challenges.

• Sea Clearly is a tool to visualise where pollutants travel in the ocean. We focus on its application for Mediterranean aquaculture managers and policy-makers interested in impacts of (plastic) pollutants on and from aquaculture farms. Our tool can suggest  aquaculture farm locations with the lowest risk of 1) being in ocean plastic pathways and 2) wear and tear from farms reaching marine protected areas. The aim is to help aquaculture farms produce safer, pollutant-free fish for better food security and low impact to the surrounding marine environment.
• PerfeCt (Performance of Aquaculture under Climate change) is a modular geospatial web application built to forecast the effects of climate change on three key aquaculture performance factors: time-to-market, food conversion ratio, and risk of disease (vibriosis). The application is targeted to everyone interested in aquaculture farming, distribution, and decision-making processes, with main focus on policymakers, aquaculture farmers, and the general public. It aims to provide information necessary to strengthen investor confidence and support development of smart policies.
• The Wildlife Tracker for Oceans is a geo-framework dedicated to the real-time assessment of Marine Protected Areas - MPAs. The web application is able to retrieve the movement tracking data of marine megafauna in real-time visualisation using live feeds from Argos satellite system. Thanks to geospatial technologies and ocean products obtained from Copernicus Marine Service and Blue-Cloud, the geo-framework has the capability of adding temporal layers of Chl-a concentration as a proxy of Phytoplankton biomass. The Wildlife Tracker for Oceans aims to support the management of MPAs based on the interaction between marine megafauna movements and phytoplankton concentration. This project is focused in marine spatial planning and marine wildlife conservation.

We are inviting the marine science community to join the Blue-Cloud platform and exploit our Open Science digital services for their research. From biodiversity to plankton genomics, from environmental indicators to fisheries & aquaculture, and everything in between.

Agenda

• 16:00 - Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Trust-IT Services & Blue-Cloud - Welcome and Blue-Cloud introduction Download slides
• 16:05 - Delphine Lobelle, Utrecht University & The Particle Trackers - Sea Clearly Download slides
• 16:17 - Ines Haberle, Ruđer Bošković Institute & AqADAPT - PerfeCt Download slides
• 16:29 - Bryan Vallejo, Digital Geography Lab & Marine Wildlife Tracker - The Wildlife Tracker for Oceans Download slides