The European Union (EU) has awarded €8.4 million to the ODYSSEA project consortium to develop an interoperable platform that fully integrates networks of observation and forecasting systems across the Mediterranean basin.
The ODYSSEA platform will collect information from databases maintained by agencies, public authorities, research institutions and universities.
It will integrate existing data with information generated by coastal observations, new and existing sensors at sea, oceanographic models and mobile apps.
The 4.5-year project is aimed at making Mediterranean marine data easily accessible and tailored to the needs of multiple maritime sector end-users.
These include wind farms, mariculture, ocean energy, oil and gas extraction, undersea cables, ports and shipping, policy and others.
Georgios Sylaios , from the Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH) said: “We have identified a real need to harmonize existing earth observing systems operating around the Mediterranean and upgrading their operational oceanographic capacities. The project will support EU policy implementation, thus improving interoperability in monitoring and fostering blue growth jobs creation.”
ODYSSEA, led by DUTH, is comprised of 28 partner organizations from 14 EU and non-EU countries across the Mediterranean. The consortium includes research institutes, universities, policy makers, non-governmental organizations and SMEs.