Special Issue "Research Progress on Ocean Observations Technology and Information Systems"

The oceans play a crucial role in the global ecosystem for shaping climate and weather trends, water management and health, and the biogeochemical cycles, representing valuable sources of oil, food, minerals and renewable energy. Although increasingly mature marine observation technologies have been developed during recent decades for a better understanding of the oceans, the new advances of existing operational observing systems have been constrained by limited cooperation and interaction between the managers of existing ocean networks on earth as well as between the observing units. Furthermore, the development of smart in situ marine sensors to be integrated into existing fixed units (such as landers and mooring buoys) as well as in mobile units (such as AUVs, ROVs, ships of opportunity, marine drones, Argo floats and gliders) are under development in the frame of various European and international projects. In recent years, a lot of progress has been made for the Ocean Observation Technologies and Information Systems by developing cost effective and miniaturized sensing devices with very low power consumption that would be directly integrated as a "plug and play" operational mode in existing sensor networks. Additionally, a lot of effort has been made to develop acoustic communication methods and modules to transmit the data from the deep ocean as well as cellular systems for transmitting the data of the marine sensors in near real-time mode using 4G/5G protocols (especially in coastal areas). In order to improve the processes that take place globally in the oceans (such as weather monitoring and forecasting, climate variability, sea level rise, natural hazards, ocean acidification, health of the ocean, pollution and ecosystem functioning, energy, economic development and coastal management, public safety, security, training and education), new research is ongoing to improve and optimize infrastructures and updated models at the international level. The state-of-the-art in situ marine sensors with the capability to be easily integrated into ocean platforms combined with innovative communication and information systems for real-time data transmission will emerge as new features of both forecasting methods and smart emergency systems to protect humans.