Filling the observational gaps of European Seas

Deep ocean and the open ocean environment above it are the least observed but largest habitats on our planet. Ocean observation presents several challenges, such as high dynamic variability and difficulties in achieving wide data collection in terms of spatial and temporal regularity. This observing gap provokes a lack of the ability to manage and mitigate potentially adverse climatic, environmental, and economic outcomes. Thus, there is a need for a dense observing effort, trying to assess the biological, chemical, and physical processes. NAUTILOS project aims to provide a large-scale demonstration of several types of new and cost-effective sensors and samplers integrated on multiple platforms to perform autonomous in-situ monitoring. The strategic objective is to fill in the marine observation and modelling gaps for these Essential Ocean Variables to complement and expand the current European products, tools, and services. One of the underlying goals is to improve the democratisation of the usage of tools and data not only to professionals but also to Citizen Scientists who could contribute to extending the data availability towards a better understanding of the ocean processes