EMODnet Chemistry interviewed Reiner Schlitzer from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) about the data collection on eutrophication and acidity at European level, which has been recently published on the EMODnet Portal. He talked about this new data product and how you can make the most of it with the EMODnet Chemistry web Ocean Data View (webODV) Explorer and Extractor Service. AWI has been a core member of the EMODnet Chemistry partnership since 2009. Reiner Schlitzer has been developing the Ocean Data View (ODV), an interactive data analysis and visualisation software, since 1988 and its online version, webODV, together with AWI-coworker Sebastian Mieruch for five years. Question 1 - What are the most important features of this European data collection on eutrophication and acidity? Answer 1, Reiner Schlitzer (R.S) - It results from the combination of eutrophication and acidity data from all European Seas. In total, this dataset contains observations for 23 hydrographic, macro-nutrient and pigment parameters at more than 1.3 million stations (See map below). The data cover the period from 1900 until 2023, with the vast majority (97 %) being recent data from the last 50 years. The dataset contains huge numbers of observations for temperature and salinity (>52 mio), dissolved oxygen (>40 mio), or dissolved phosphate (>2,4 mio), making this data collection a very rich resource for marine researchers, policy advisors and the general public alike.  IMAGE 1: Spatial coverage of the EMODnet Chemistry European data collection on eutrophication and acidity: 23 hydrographic, macro-nutrient and pigment parameters at more than 1.3 million stations. © Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) Question 2 - EMODnet Chemistry regularly compiles regional data collections. What is the process from the measurement data to the six regional data collections and then to the unique European data collection? Answer 2, R.S. - Once the measurement data are gathered in the SeaDataNet Data Discovery and Access Service, they are regularly harvested to serve as input for the EMODnet Chemistry Regional Leaders. They coordinate the creation of regional data collections for the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea, the North-East Atlantic, the North Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The regional coordinators aggregate, harmonise and quality control new data sets of a kaleidoscope of different parameters from dozens of data centres, which in turn collect data from hundreds of originators. In addition, the coordinators constantly update and upgrade the data collections, thus improving the quality and quantity of the associated information. These regional data collections are then combined into a single, overarching collection using the ODV software (Schlitzer, Reiner (2022): Ocean Data View, [Software] ). Answer 3 - R.S. The European data collection on eutrophication and acidity can be downloaded as a complete dataset in ODV collection format from the EMODnet Products Catalogue. The dataset can also be accessed online through the webODV Data Explorer and Extractor tool, which is part of the EMODnet Chemistry Key Services (navigate to emodnet-chem 2023 eutrophication > AllRegions > Eutrophication AllRegions profiles 2023 unrestricted). In this latter case, no data download or software installation is required by users. We provide two ways of online access: (1) data sub-setting and extraction of the subsets, and (2) ODV-like analysis and visualisation using the ODV-online interface in the user’s web browser.
Answer 4 - R.S. Regardless of whether users have downloaded the full data package and do analysis on a local computer or whether they perform analysis and visualisation online, both, ODV desktop and ODV-online offer very rich interactive feature sets that allow creation of a wide range of publication-ready figures. Getting-started and HowTo documents are available under the Help menus, or directly at the following links: https://emodnet-chemistry.webodv.awi.de/documentation/webodv-data-extractor-howto.pdf https://emodnet-chemistry.webodv.awi.de/documentation/webodv-data-explorer-howto.pd Three usage examples are briefly described below.  IMAGE 2: Plot showing the dissolved oxygen concentration in 20 m depth for the full geographical extent of the dataset. © Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)  IMAGE 3: Distributions of salinity and dissolved oxygen along a section between Sardinia and Sicily. © Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)  IMAGE 4: Plot showing the seasonal variation of dissolved phosphate in the upper 10 metres of the water column for a subset of stations in the south-western Baltic Sea. The red curve is a moving average estimate and represents the mean behaviour.© Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) Question 5 - Has there been any interesting feedback from webODV users since the publication of this new data collection on 15 April 2024? Answer 5 - R.S -So far, we have registered 51 explore and extract sessions. We expect this number to increase rapidly. Indeed, ODV/webODV are appreciated by an ever-growing user community, as the statistics show: 10,000 downloads of the latest version, 126,000 registered users, 250 visitors and 25 new users per day. And finally, images from ODV have been published in more than 1,500 scientific articles. |
The first European validated data collection on eutrophication and acidity is online
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