European efforts to make marine data more accessible

Abstract

Marine data are held by hundreds of different institutions in Europe: hydrographic offices, geological surveys, local authorities, environmental agencies, research institutes and universities. The increasing prevalence of open data policies helps to make these data more accessible and usable. But, on its own, this is not enough. The European Union is therefore supporting a partnership of approximately 150 organisations who are rendering the data more interoperable and therefore more usable through common standards, nomenclature and baselines. The data are accompanied by confidence intervals. This change is already increasing productivity, stimulating innovation, and reducing uncertainty in the blue economy.