Abstract :
[en] EMODnet Chemistry is a thematic component of the European Marine Observa-
tion and Data Network launched by DG MARE in 2009 to improve the availability of high
quality environmental data and support the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)
requirements. The aim is twofold: the first task is to make available and reusable the big
amount of fragmented and inaccessible data, hosted in the European research institutes
and environmental agencies, after processing them into interoperable formats, using agreed
standards and vocabularies and assessing their accuracy and precision. The second objec-
tive is to develop visualization data products useful for the tasks of the MSFD. EMODnet
Chemistry involves a European network of 46 institutes from 29 coastal countries, covering
most European seas. Data managed by the EMODnet Chemistry distributed infrastructure
include chemical properties measured in three matrices: seawater, sediment and biota and
address three descriptors of Good Environmental Status (GES) defined by the MSFD: eu-
trophication, contaminants in the environment and in seafood. The pillars of the project
include the assembly of data and metadata according to standardized procedures, the pro-
cessing into interoperable formats, the definition of common quality control procedures, the
assessment of data quality and the generation of suitable data products for all European sea
regions, in agreement with the requests of the MSFD. The technical set-up is based on the
principle of adopting and adapting the SeaDataNet pan-European infrastructure for ocean
and marine data management which is managed by NODCs and relies on a distributed net-
work of data centres. The quality of the data has appeared as a key issue when merging
heterogeneous data coming from different sources. The data validation loop includes a first
set of controls done by the data collators prior to the inclusion of the data in the infras-
tructure, a data aggregation and data quality control, performed in a coordinated way on
the five Regional Data Buffers which are related to the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the At-
lantic area (including the Atlantic coast and the Macaronesia), the Mediterranean Sea and
the Black Sea respectively. Regular reports are sent to the data collators to correct errors
or anomalies in the master copy of the data, available from the EMODnet infrastructure,
and to guarantee the data quality upgrading. Besides this, the consortium started the col-
lection of quality information “ex-ante”, related to the source laboratories analysis (based
on ISO/IEC 17025/2005). In order to test new strategies for data storage and reanalysis
and to upgrade the infrastructure performances, EMODnet Chemistry has chosen the Cloud
hosting offered by Cineca (the Consortium of Italian Universities and research institutes) to
host the Regional Data Buffers and facilitate the analysis and visualization services. Finally,beside the delivery of data and products, the results of the data harvesting by this Europe
wide consortium of institutes for all the European Seas provide a useful starting point for a
gap analysis to gain understanding where the future monitoring efforts should be focused.
