Editor's Note
Welcome to the middle of the year and the latest News Flash for the ocean best practices community! In this issue, we’re sharing exciting updates about our upcoming workshop and other resources to assist you in developing and using ocean best practices.
We hope that our move to a bimonthly distribution has helped streamline our content and help keep your inboxes just a bit more manageable. As always, we’d love to hear any suggestions or contributions you have for future content. Just send a message to newsletter@oceanbestpractices.org.
~ Rachel Przeslawski
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Registration for 6th Ocean Practices Workshop Now Open!
Registrations for the next Ocean Practices : OBPS Workshop VI are now open HERE, and we welcome all in the global ocean best practices community to attend.
Plenaries will be 5, and 19 October 2022 (each three hours long) and will have two instances to accommodate time zones of our global participants. Theme Sessions will meet in between, at times of their own choosing. The workshop will be wholly online.
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Open Call for Ocean Practices ECOP Ambassador Programme
The Ocean Practices programme is seeking Early Career Ocean Professional (ECOP) ambassadors who are passionate and enthusiastic about global interoperability, regional capabilities and ocean best practices, and are willing to play an important role in advocating for best practices and communicating the needs of best practices, their development and implementation. Specifically, Ocean Practices is looking for at least one ECOP representative for each global region (i.e., French Africa, English Africa, Australasia, Asia, India, Europe, North America, South America), as regional practices can diverge and thus have different requirements for key stakeholder involvement, consideration of resources and capabilities, and communication strategies.
Read more and find out how to apply here.
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Journal Updates
Over the past three months, three manuscripts have been published to our Frontiers of Science research theme on Best Practices in Ocean Observing, including
- A review by Boss et al. synthesising recommendations for plankton measurements,
- A methods paper by Byrne et al. introducing an approach to design a large scale autonomous observing network, and
- A perspective article by Carapuço et al. describing the Portuguese European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and Water Column Observatory Initiative.
Our research theme now shows more than 281,000 views! Consider submitting your own article to our theme and sharing your work with the international community.
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From the Repository - Unbaited Underwater Video System
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The OBPS Repository allows the upload of multiple files associated with a single ocean practice. This means that a given method can include a report, peer-reviewed journal article, video tutorial, promotional material, or infographics, all at one easily accessible URL!
A wonderful recent example of this is the STAVIRO unbaited underwater video system which is used to monitor essential biodiversity variables for fish and habitat in coastal areas. The authors have recently uploaded the following to the Repository, all accessible here:
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Success Story - Second Module of Ocean Best Practices Course
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Rebecca Zitoun & Ana Lara-Lopez
In Issue 41, we described how the OBPS team is putting together an online course about ocean best practices, and we introduced the first module 'What is a best practice' which covered the concept of best practices and the OBPS.
This month, we’ve released our second module 'Creating a best practice'. In this course, Dr. Rachel Przeslawski (Research Leader, NSW Department of Primary Industries) will introduce the seven steps required to develop an ocean best practice in two short presentations. She will explain how to create a best practice, including the biggest challenges, and how to review and elevate a method to a best practice. By the end of the course, participants will understand why the process is more than just developing a method.
If you are interested in learning about Ocean Best Practices through this course go to IOC’s OceanTeacher e-Learning Platform. You will need to register if you do not have an account on OceanTeacher to have access to the OBPS course here. We hope you enjoy it!
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Feature - Best Practices in Developing Regions (Part II)
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Rachel Przeslawski
At their March meeting, the OBPS Steering Group was treated to a trio of presentations by leaders in best practices in developing regions, including Tommy Bornman (TB, South Africa), Ana Carolina de Azevedo Mazzuco (AM, Brazil), and Jerome Aucan (JA, Pacific region). We covered some of the key points and common recommendations in our previous issue. In this issue, we’re sharing the panelists’ answers to three discussion questions:
Are there manufacturers already providing low cost ocean instrumentation, and how can that be further developed?
- Yes, this is happening for most of the instruments and sensors, but it’s important to check the quality of data produced from cheaper instruments, Instrument calibration can be costly, and it is cheaper to put more than one instrument in the water at the same time and bring it back to a controlled temperature water bath to allow some comparison and provide basic calibration checks before and after use (TB).
- Staff and maintenance time can also be a more prohibitive issue than cost; we need more training and better pay for qualified technical roles. We must convince funding agencies of the need to include funding for training. In Brazil there are just 2 small companies certified to calibrate oceanographic instruments. Mostly it is done within the labs (AM).
Is language an inhibiting factor to access and use existing ocean practices, most of which are in English?
- This depends on the level of expertise and whether you are operating in more regional areas. English is ok at the research centres but not out in the regions. Unfortunately, most training material is in English (AM).
- English is the language of science and usually fine for scientists. However, technicians, particularly those in rural areas, may not speak English, and this can be a barrier. Major best practices should be translated into multiple key languages (TB).
From a practical point of view, what activities would a task team for developing countries do first?
- They should consider a literature review to see what is around the world and if it works in under-resourced countries (TB).
- They need to define the scope of the task team - are they looking at developing countries globally or will they focus on particular countries as case studies (JA)?
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One of the first best practices to receive GOOS endorsement was that for baited remote underwater video (BRUVs). A team of over 40 ocean practitioners led the development of a national standard for BRUV operations and associated data management and analysis (see paper here). Due to the highly collaborative nature of the method and broad acceptance by the international community, it is now considered best practice and routinely used by fish ecologists all over the world.
This photo was taken last week beneath the striking cliffs of southeastern Australia and shows one of the BRUV best practice co-authors Matt Rees retrieving a BRUV with fisheries compliance officer Eddie Douglas during one of their routine patrols. The BRUVs are deployed using the consistent protocols of the best practice across the state every few years, yielding a comparable dataset over time and space to detect trends and assess condition of the marine estate.
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World Oceans Day
World Ocean Day is on 8 June when people around our blue planet celebrate and honor our one shared ocean that connects us all. Canada first proposed a World Oceans Day in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, and it was officially recognised by the United Nations in 2008. Last year over 1000 online and onsite events connected 140 countries, and over 1100 organisations representing 84 countries signed a petition to world leaders to protect 30% of our lands and oceans by 2030. This year World Oceans Day is focussing on safeguarding our ocean and its biodiversity and building climate change resiliency. Read more here. |
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A journey across the Atlantic seafloor
More than two thirds of our planet are covered by water. What lies underneath is a mystery – only 20 percent of the sea floor has been explored in detail. But hasn’t it always appealed to you, this underwater world with all its mysteries? Then join us for a hike across the seabed. Read about this fascinating and imaginative hike from Nelly Ritz here.
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EuroSea Workshop on Best Practices
Jay Pearlman
Many of us think of best practices for observations or data management, but there are many practices that go beyond these areas, e.g. for analyses and applications. The EuroSea workshop on best practices in May began exploring best practices in modeling and forecasting. Three presentations stimulated discussions:Toward ocean glider best practices (S Thomsen), DCC Ocean Prediction:synergies with OBPS (E Alvarez) and Assimilation of glider observations in the Mediterranean Sea (A Aydogdu). Some of the recommendations from the workshop include:
- Non-English documents (with English metadata) should be part of the best practices inventory.
- Best Practices as a theme should be part of university curriculum
- Methodology documents should be submitted to OBPS Repository but published in Frontiers in Marine Science for academic credit.
- Methodologies should be updated due changing technology, and these changes should be noted in new versions of methodology document.
For additional capabilities, recommendations were:
- Prioritise best practices for applications are a priority (e.g. harmful algal blooms, marine heatwaves
- Link Practices from observations to forecasting to applications.
- Expand communication channels between users and BP creators
- Emphasise the availability of uncertainty estimates for all data records
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Deep Ocean Observing System Annual Meeting
Justin Stopa (University of Hawaii)
The Deep Ocean Observing System (DOOS) Annual meeting was held virtually May 03 - 05 2022. The overarching focus was “Addressing Global Challenges in the Deep Sea through Collaboration”. DOOS is an international, community-based group that coordinates deep observing to understand the state of the global deep ocean with respect to baseline conditions and response to climate change. DOOS’s overall goal is to cultivate a globally integrated network of networks to observe the deep ocean effectively in support of science, policy, and planning for sustainable oceans. DOOS is also a United Nations endorsed program for the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Many aspects of the DOOS community effort were covered during the 3-day workshop, including an introduction to global challenge initiatives, plenaries from early-career scientists, working group sessions, and a summary session.
Within DOOS, our strategy is to co-design and co-develop whenever possible. It is important to seek synergistic efforts whenever possible. Due to the size and complexity of such a large international effort, Ocean Best Practices (OBP) are needed. Indeed OBP is a central theme of DOOS. There was a 20-minute discussion to identify and address the greatest research/communication barriers in deep ocean observation. It was a fruitful discussion that perhaps raised more questions than answers such as, how does one encourage the adaptation of method or standard practice? There was a very innovative comment that true change in science often comes from changing the culture and that could be linked to changing publishing houses' requirements to further encourage reproducibility and interoperability in science.
Frank Muller-Karger delivered a plenary on Day 2 which also included a demonstration of a submission to the OBP System repository (OBPS) by Justin Stopa with assistance from Pauline Simpson (IOC/IODE) and Mark Bushnell (OBP/NOAA). The subsequent discussion started around guaranteeing interoperability. Two key themes emerged: convergence and endorsement, and it was noted that community engagement is needed throughout the process. It was recognized that DOOS so far has not endorsed any practices or methods but they could be an ideal group to do so in the future. For example, the group discussed the expected increase of deep-sea mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and to date, DOOS has not been involved in any of the regulatory issues. NOAA’s ocean exploration division was very active in the discussion and gave various examples of how their group operates. They have various standardizations within their group and they seemed willing to contribute to the OBPS repository. The meeting concluded with an open call for DOOS and others to form a working group centered around DOOS and OBP noting the OBPS 6th workshop in October 2022.
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The West (excerpt)
Alphonse de Lamartine
I was alone beside the sea, upon a starry night
And not a cloud was in the sky, and not a sail in sight;
Beyond the limits of the world far stretched my raptured eye,
And the forests and the mountains, and nature all around,
Seemed to unite in questioning, in vast and mingled sound,
The billows of the ocean, and the splendor of the sky.
And the golden stars of heaven, in their unnumbered crowd,
With harmonies ten thousand, with voices clear and loud,
Replied, as low they bended down their radiant crowns of flame
And the blue floods that nought has power to govern or arrest,
Replied, as low they bended down, the foam upon their crest—
'The Lord, our great Creator, His glory we proclaim!'
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- Ocean Decade Co-Design Workshop (GOOS), 7-9 June 2022, online
- SciDataCon and International Data Week, 20-23 June 2022, online and Seoul, Korea,
- World Biodiversity Forum, June 26 - July 1 2022, Davos, Switzerland
- SCAR 2022: Antarctica in a Changing World, 1-10 August 2022, online
- 7th International Marine Debris Conference, 18-23 September 2022, Busan, Korea
- IMPAC5 (International Marine Protected Areas Congress) 2022,1-8 September 2022, Vancouver, Canada
- OBPS Workshop VI, October 2022, online
Please regularly check the Events section of our webpage for updates.
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