The EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM): Standardized and Interoperable Instrumentation for Ocean Observation

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Nadine Lantéri, Henry A. Ruhl, Andrew Gates, Enoc Martínez, Joaquin del Rio Fernandez, Jacopo Aguzzi, Mathilde Cannat, Eric Delory, Davide Embriaco, Robert Huber, Marjolaine Matabos, George Petihakis, Kieran Reilly, Jean-François Rolin, Mike van der Schaar, Michel André, Jérôme Blandin, Andrés Cianca, Marco Francescangeli, Oscar Garcia, Susan Hartman, Jean-Romain Lagadec, Julien Legrand, Paris Pagonis, Jaume Piera, Xabier Remirez, Daniel M. Toma, Giuditta Marinaro, Bertrand Moreau, Raul Santana, Hannah Wright, Juan José Dañobeitia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
• Subjects: fixed-point observatories; multi-parametric monitoring; seafloor; water column; EMSO; EGIM; Science; Q; General. Including nature conservation; geographical distribution; QH1-199.5; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.801033; https://doaj.org/article/48938ca9c5774fa2a3395efaa061cdf6

The oceans are a fundamental source for climate balance, sustainability of resources and life on Earth, therefore society has a strong and pressing interest in maintaining and, where possible, restoring the health of the marine ecosystems. Effective, integrated ocean observation is key to suggesting actions to reduce anthropogenic impact from coastal to deep-sea environments and address the main challenges of the 21st century, which are summarized in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Blue Growth strategies. The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO), is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), with the aim of providing long-term observations via fixed-point ocean observatories in key environmental locations across European seas from the Arctic to the Black Sea. These may be supported by ship-based observations and autonomous systems such as gliders. In this paper, we present the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM), a deployment ready multi-sensor instrumentation module, designed to measure physical, biogeochemical, biological and ecosystem variables consistently, in a range of marine environments, over long periods of time. Here, we describe the system, features, configuration, operation and data management. We demonstrate, through a series of coastal and oceanic pilot experiments that the EGIM is a valuable standard ocean observation module, which can significantly improve the capacity of existing ocean observatories and provides the basis for new observatories. The diverse examples of use included the monitoring of fish activity response upon oceanographic variability, hydrothermal vent fluids and particle dispersion, passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and time series of environmental variation in the water column. With the EGIM available to all the EMSO Regional Facilities, EMSO will be reaching a milestone in standardization and interoperability, marking a key capability advancement in addressing issues of sustainability in resource and ...