SMART Ocean SMART Industries – Scaling Up of Ocean Data Collection by Industry

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The World Ocean Council has launched the “Smart Ocean/Smart Industries” program – a global, multisectoral portal for coordinating ocean industry efforts to collect oceanic and atmospheric data. Smart Ocean/Smart Industries is a major new initiative and opportunity for industry leadership in contributing to the long term understanding, health and management of the ocean. The program will provide the structure and process for facilitating scientific community collaboration with industry in collecting data that: a) contributes to describing the status, trends and variability of ocean and atmosphere conditions and b) improves the understanding, modeling and forecasting of ocean ecosystems, resources, weather, climate variability and climate change. The program will ensure that voluntary observation efforts by shipping, oil/gas, fisheries, offshore renewable energy and other ocean industries is coordinated, efficient, cost effective and is integrated into national and international observation programs. The unique multi-sectoral basis of the program creates significant opportunities for synergies and economies of scale, e.g. in sensor development.