European Multidisciplinary seafloor and the Observatory of the water column for Development; The setup of an interoperable Generic Sensor Module

European Multidisciplinary seafloor and the Observatory of the water column for Development (EMSODEV) is a Horizon-2020 UE project whose overall objective is the operationalization of eleven marine observatories and four test sites distributed throughout Europe, from the Arctic to the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The whole infrastructure is managed by the European consortium EMSO-ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) with the participation of 8 European countries and other partner countries. Now, we are implementing a Generic Sensor Module (EGIM) within the EMSO ERIC distributed marine research infrastructure. Our involvement is mainly on developing standard-compliant generic software for Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) on EGIM device. The main goal of this development is to support the sensors data acquisition on a new interoperable EGIM system. The EGIM software structure is made up of one acquisition layer located between the recorded data at EGIM module and the data management services. Therefore, two main interfaces are implemented: first, assuring the EGIM hardware acquisition and second allowing push and pull data from data management layer (Sensor Web Enable standard compliant). All software components used are Open source licensed and has been configured to manage different roles on the whole system (52° North SOS Server, Zabbix Monitoring System). The acquisition data module has been implemented with the aim to join all components for EGIM data acquisition and server fulfilling SOS standards interface. The system is already achieved awaiting for the first laboratory bench test and shallow water test connection to the OBSEA node, offshore Vilanova I la Geltrú (Barcelona, Spain). The EGIM module will record a wide range of ocean parameters in a long-term consistent, accurate and comparable manner from disciplines such as biology, geology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and computer science, from polar to subtropical environments, through the water column down to the deep sea. The measurements recorded along EMSO NODES are critical to respond accurately to the social and scientific challenges such as climate change, changes in marine ecosystems, and marine hazards.