Coherent EU-wide coastal data to better monitor the world's oceans

Global warming and environmental pressures are endangering not only Europe's coasts but also the habitats and human development around them. For Europe to monitor its seas and coasts effectively and address these pressures, the continent's coastal observatories must join forces and work closely together.

With this in mind, the EU-funded JERICO (Towards a joint European research infrastructure network for coastal observatories) project gathered European coastal observatories and encouraged joint research initiatives and standardisation through a unified European organisation for data management.

Work began by taking stock of existing technology and methods, best practices and key challenges in order to lay down a common vision and strategy for coastal observatories. Project partners harmonised operation and maintenance methods by carrying out technical studies on various observing systems. They delivered best practice guidelines and quality control standards, and introduced ways to enhance the service components of coastal observatories via technological improvements and innovation.

Transnational access was offered to several unique European coastal observatories and calibration facilities for international research and technology development. This enabled scientists and engineers to freely access coastal infrastructures not otherwise available in their homelands. Transnational activities also helped to foster joint research initiatives across national boundaries.

The JERICO team evaluated the management of distributed data from other infrastructures and European projects. It set up a dissemination platform to boost the visibility of JERICO and raise the awareness of industry, academia and government.

JERICO introduced a networked infrastructure based on an end-to-end coastal monitoring process, from data acquisition to dissemination. It will improve environmental monitoring efforts and improve predictions of climate-related impacts.