EMECO

Summary of EMECO-NOOS meeting minutes, Lowestoft

The EMECO-NOOS meeting was held in June, 2009 at the Orbis Energy Centre, Lowestoft. It provided an opportunity to take stock of EMECO's current status and how it will engage with other relevant initiatives to meet current and future EU policy and research needs.

Around 40 scientists and policy makers for 7 countries bordering the North Sea attended the meeting, which was opened by Dr. Joe Horwood, President of ICES and Chief Scientist at Cefas.

The meeting reviewed the policy background to the initiative and in particular the needs of OSPAR, with regards to eutrophication monitoring and assessment and the future needs of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive. A number of potential challenges were identified that EMECO was regarded as capable of meeting. These included:

• Improving spatial and temporal coverage of monitoring and improving effectiveness and efficiency

• Putting marine observations into wider context

• A focus on putting transparent regional scale information products into the policy arena

Other policy drivers that require long-term marine monitoring include the Water Framework Directive, Habitats Directive, the Common Fisheries Policy and Water Framework Directive. The meeting noted that a number of EU initiatives aim to provide data and information in support of policy and other end user needs. Examples include MYOCEANS, EMODNET, NOOS and WISE-MARINE. The meeting concluded that EMECO was well placed to make direct use of programmes such as MYOCEANS and EMODNET ensuring integration between the initiatives and providing an interface with end users.

The meeting considered the need for initiating a North Sea Observatory. In general it was felt that the greater North Sea was at the correct scale for addressing policy issues and some key science questions. Downscaling with EMECO and a North Sea Observatory would also facilitate meeting the requirements of other end users such as industry (e.g. aquaculture, water industry, fishing) or local authorities the public (e.g. beach goers, surfers, sailors).

Finally, opportunities for future funding of related work were discussed and in particular an EU framework 7 proposal (Jerico) to be submitted under the Integrated Infrastucture call. l

For more information download:

• The EMECO-NOOS meeting minutes

• The EMECO-NOOS meeting presentations

• See the EMECO-NOOS meeting photos