EMSO ERIC - European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory European Research Infrastructure ConsortiumManagement a distributed marine Research Infrastructure for improving scientific services and social demands based on environmental multidisciplinary high-resolution and high-quality data

EMSO ERIC distributed Research Infrastructure (RI) is a legal entity sustained by European Countries with the ambition to lead the advancement of knowledge of the natural and anthropogenic processes in the ocean, seafloor and sub-seafloor and to promote an inter- and multi-disciplinary approach. EMSO ERIC also supports the development and progress of marine technologies and responds to the environmental demands of European society, such as the Blue Growth Strategy of the EU H2020 Programme.

The objective of EMSO ERIC is to establish a complete and smart sensor system in the water column, seafloor and sub-seafloor environments. This distributed infrastructure is composed of 8 Regional Facilities and 3 test sites, located in strategic environmental locations of the marine areas of the North Atlantic, through the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and intraplate volcanic areas that enter the Mediterranean through the collision zone between Eurasia and Africa ending in the anoxic Black Sea basin. These large-scale facilities provide high-quality data at continental scale integrating the EMSO time series with data acquired in other locations. The main aim of EMSO RI is to illuminate the environmental processes of the complex interactions between geosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere.

The increase of the sea level, the warming and acidification of the oceans are indicators of a constant global change. In addition, phenomena like the contamination of nutrients by anthropogenic activities and the proliferation of toxic algae, as well as the harmful pollution of tons of plastics in the sea, are significantly growing.

Modern societies demand a better knowledge of the oceans; EMSO ERIC represents the ability to address the social benefits of ocean observatories, meeting these social demands through services such as science, engineering and logistics, data management, communication and industry and innovation. EMSO ERIC promotes the science of excellence and coordinates European deep-sea observatories in interdisciplinary scientific research

In this scenario, a significant effort is made to define and calibrate methodologies and best practices for coordinating and integrating different parameters coming from the observatories, improving the existing capacities in each Regional Facility.