As a key EU pillar for Marine Knowledge and in situ marine data service of the European Commission (EC), DG MARE, EMODnet welcomes the European Oceans Pact and submitted an EMODnet response to the recent call for evidence which closed on 17 February 2025. The EMODnet response is presented below (see also .pdf attachment) and is a collective response by the EMODnet Steering Committee, including the Secretariat, Central Portal and thematic and data ingestion coordinators and SC representatives.
As a key EU pillar for Marine Knowledge and in situ marine data service of the European Commission (EC), DG MARE, EMODnet welcomes the call for evidence to shape the European Oceans Pact.
EMODnet’s core purpose is to provide open and free access to marine knowledge spanning the marine environment and human activities at sea, at pan-European scale, which EMODnet provides as Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data and data products from coast to open ocean and from surface to seafloor. EMODnet is an authority for in situ marine data and metadata standards, applying the INSPIRE Directive and the European Open Data Directive in the marine data domain.
EMODnet is implemented by a large expert network of more than 120 organisations across the EU which also collectively produces EMODnet’s open access data products e.g., the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) for harmonised bathymetry, the EUSeaMap broad-scale Seabed Habitat Map and the pan-European Marine Litter Database. Today, EMODnet serves more than 120,000 diverse stakeholders per year via its single, public EMODnet Portal (emodnet.ec.europa.eu), and EMODnet is also a core marine knowledge asset for the European Mission: Restore our Ocean and Waters and the European Green Deal, directly supporting EU Policy implementation.
For example, EMODnet supports the standardisation, harmonisation and validation of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Descriptor 10 (marine litter), and has crucial roles in other MSFD Descriptors, e.g., contaminants and underwater noise, in partnership with ICES, Regional Sea Conventions and Member States. EMODnet also supports the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (MSPD), offering National MSPs as accessible geospatial data layers on the EMODnet Portal, enabling cross-border MSP activities. EMODnet experts routinely provide advice to Technical Working Groups of MSFD and MSP on data/metadata standardisation and harmonisation. And EMODnet stands ready to serve the marine knowledge needs of the Nature Restoration Law and Europe’s contribution to the Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). EMODnet’s increasingly diverse and high-resolution coastal offer includes crucial land-sea interface information on riverine outputs, sea level rise, marine geohazards, coastal vulnerability maps, sea grass and blue carbon areas, and Marine Protected Areas. Today, EMODnet is also a core service used by the Blue Economy for their planning, micro-siting, operations at sea and environmental impact assessments. EMODnet’s trusted service also boosts Innovation, Research and Development and a more competitive, green and digital Europe.
As the in situ marine data component of the European Digital Twin Ocean (EUDTO), EMODnet delivers high volumes of FAIR data to the EDITO data lake, in close partnership with the Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS). EMODnet, CMEMS and EUDTO are core European marine knowledge assets also for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) marine node and the wider EU Green Deal data space. EMODnet is interoperable with the global ocean data ecosystem, with its catalogue being harvested by the Ocean Data Information System (ODIS) of IODE IOC-UNESCO as a key contribution to the UN Ocean Decade, and by the Group on Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
EMODnet stands ready to help shape Europe’s comprehensive agenda for marine knowledge, as a pillar of the Oceans Pact, and to support the EC Ocean Observation Initiative which will all benefit from more sustained and coordinated in situ ocean observations and related marine data management. And, as a core component of the in situ marine knowledge value chain, EMODnet requires strengthened investment to consolidate its core services and to evolve its marine knowledge offer and digital services to meet emerging societal needs, e.g., support to EU Policy, EUDTO, etc, to be presented in EMODnet’s community Vision 2035 (launching Spring 2025).
EMODnet was also a co-author to a response submitted by the European Ocean Observing System (EOOS) Steering Group. See the EOOS SG response.