Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice: iMarine Business Cases

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Business Cases Summary

The iMarine Business Cases (BC's) cover the rationale behind the decision process that govern the selection of the business cases to support and it will illustrate the features of the third and unselected business case that could be addressed in the remaining selected business cases.

The Business Cases in iMarine serve several important purposes, even if they are not immediate drivers of activities. The Business Cases are where the outcome of activities can become evident, and will be 'measurable'. The brackets here are needed since the tools are not equipped with standardized features to measure their uptake, use and impact.

Throughout the life-cycle of the iMarine Project, the BC's purpose changes, and therefore require that the mediation and governance processes that aim to realize them evolve accordingly. The iMarine Board has a role in safeguarding that the overall activity in the project are beneficial to the realization of the Business Cases. The

The overall purpose of the BC's over the life-time of the iMarine project can be aligned with the themes of the planned iMarine Board meetings:

  • Semester 1; Mobilization of Board and identification of opportunities for collaboration and technologies;
  • Semester 2; Stabilization of opportunities and defining the technology scope;
  • Semester 3; Experimentation with technologies, and expansion of EA-CoPCommunity of Practice.;
  • Semester 4; Validation of collaboration structures and EA-Cop requirements consolidation;
  • Semester 5; Exploitation of EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. collaboration frameworks.

These high level themes will be reflected in the respective meeting reports.

Business Case original description (DOW)

BC1 - Support to EU Common Fishery Policy

As a member of FAO, the EU has adopted the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) and one of its key instruments, the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries, has become one of the drivers of the European Common Fishery Policy (CFP). The implementation of this EU CFP requires a complex flow of fishery data and information from fishing industry activity, through member states, to supporting EC agencies. As overall picture, the statistics which result of fishery data work-flows are exploited together with other thematic information, in order to formulate scientific advice on the basis of the assessed biological state of resources and socio-economic performance of the fishing sector. In turn, DG-MARE uses this scientific advice to elaborate its management and policy advice. Recently, the overarching need to have more integrated and higher quality data including in coverage, timeliness, resolution and accuracy has been stressed by DG-MARE and a substantial revision of the entire information work-flow and supporting tools has been engaged since 2009. Concerned work streams and priority levels are

  • (i) Activities database: forwarding of daily fishing vessels activity data, including VMS, log books, landings;
  • (ii) Fleet registry – Fishing licenses database: work flows from member states to EU;
  • (iii) Legal data;
  • (iv) Scientific data for fixing quotas.

BC2 - Support to FAO’s deep seas fisheries programme: balancing use of marine resources and protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the high seas

In 2009, FAO established international guidelines for the management of deep seas high seas fisheries with the aim to protect deep sea fragile ecosystems. In support to the implementation of these guidelines, FAO has formulated a programme of action entitled balancing use of marine resources and protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) in the high seas (DSF programme). One key component of this programme is the development of a VME Mapping Information System which will facilitate the registration, description, analysis and publications of all forms of information related to VMEs, in support to the management of High Seas Deep Seas Fisheries (DSF). In parallel, the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI), an international partnership advancing the scientific basis for conserving biological diversity in the deep seas and open oceans, was launched in late 2008 in support to CBD’s goals of identifying Ecologically and Biologically Sensitive Areas (EBSAs) in the Deep Seas. GOBI’s work is supported by various sources of scientific data including OBIS and various other scattered information bases.

BC3 - Support to regional (Africa) LME pelagic EAF community

The Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) sets as principle that fishery management objectives should strive to reach an optimum balance between the fishery resource productivity, the biodiversity and habitat preservation, and the social and economic goals. The EAF implementation methodology addresses these principles at the level of a selected fishery and strives to ensure that the above mentioned values are given key focus in a management plan. As described by the EAF planning and implementation steps, the objectives for the fishery under consideration have to be specified and prioritized for each of these values, following which a set of multidisciplinary indicators and reference points can be defined. These indicators are monitored through various approaches including scientific assessments, catch or effort monitoring systems, rapid appraisal surveys with participatory methods. The scientific indicators build on spatially explicit models on the distribution of fisheries activity, the socio-economic structure of fishing communities, the concentration and abundance levels of commercially desirable fish stocks, the distribution of non-target species and vulnerable aquatic habitats. For an effective management response, such monitoring across disciplines and levels of data/information/knowledge elaboration requires a well organized (often institutionalized) workflow which orchestrates the inputs of the EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. actors vertically (from the data manager, through the scientist and up to the fishery manager and policy maker) and horizontally (across concerned disciplines).


Progress towards Business case realization - as of April 2012

These business cases were initially described in November 2010 in the original iMarine project Description of Work (DoW) proposal. At the first iMarine Board Advisory Council meeting, an update has been presented (Document IMBAC_2012_1) taking into account knowledge inputs gathered in the meantime. Through the iMarine Board's mediation efforts, an iterative process of alignment between EA-policy needs and the data infrastructure services is expected.

The refinement of policy needs and the activities in support of BC2 are described in document IMBAC_2012_1 . After the first iMarine Board meeting, the possible support of iMarine both in terms of "data infrastructure" and in terms of "initiative (as forum, partnership)" is revised/refined as follows:

BC1 - Support to EU Common Fishery policy

The activities in the first semester have resulted in an intensive yet informal collaboration between various EU-level related institutes and the iMarine project. Examples are the active participation to the iMarine Board of representatives of DG-Mare, EStat, and several Regional Fisheries Bodies where EU vessels are active.

The progress towards the objective of the first semester; identification of collaboration opportunities, can be evidenced by participation to meetings on Statistical standards (SDMX), and agreement for presentation of the iMarine project at the DG-MARE offices in Brussels before the end of June 2012.

The preliminary consultations (ie before DG-Mare's June meeting) in the EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. for this BC resulted in a set of expectations for the e-InfrastructureAn operational combination of digital technologies (hardware and software), resources (data and services), communications (protocols, access rights and networks), and the people and organizational structures needed to support research efforts and collaboration in the large..

The EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. expects the e-InfrastructureAn operational combination of digital technologies (hardware and software), resources (data and services), communications (protocols, access rights and networks), and the people and organizational structures needed to support research efforts and collaboration in the large. to support:

  • managing classifications, code lists and vocabularies among different systems, ensuring mapping capacities and harmonization among these distributed sources
  • enabling streamlined (machine driven) transfer of VTI or e-Logbooks data taking care of confidentiality and security requirements
  • processing VTI or e-Logbooks raw data with aggregating capacities, and providing workspace to share with broader groups those aggregated / less sensitive data products
  • providing shared workspace with a suite of on-line visualization and analytical tools, with simultaneous and simplified access to other biodiversity and earth/oceans observations sources
  • enabling streamlined (machine driven) transfer of statistical data sets (SDMX)
  • facilitating the conversion among different formats, schema and codes


The iMarine initiative (as forum, partnership) should support:

  • by offering a forum for discussing protocols/formats/ harmonization approaches across stakeholders of the EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. , towards agreed data sharing policies.
  • by offering a testing bed regarding the operationalization of the agreed standard formats and harmonized approaches for code lists, statistical, and electronic log-books information
  • by shaping, through iMarine.data.org, a profile of standard authoritative code lists and mapping among them

BC2 - Support to FAO’s deep seas fisheries programme: balancing use of marine resources and protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the high seas

The refinement of policy needs and the activities in support of BC2 are described in document IMBAC_2012_1 . After the first iMarine Board meeting, the possible support of iMarine to BC2 is revised/refined as follows:

The EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. expects that the data infrastructure can support:

  • VME fact sheets generation with an on-line collaborative reporting/document editing workflow;
  • A (semantic) knowledge base to annotate fact sheets with controlled terms; necessary for summaries or automated maps generation;
  • A geographic data work-flow to generate point or polygon data, either through file upload, interactive drawing, or data transfer of geographic data
  • Aggregate sensitive/confidential high resolution geographic data in a secure VREVirtual Research Environment. to less sensitive data that can be shared with broader groups and eventually published. These aggregating processes can also take place at source system level before data transfer;
  • Deep sea biodiversity analyses. The access to biodiversity data requires

i) query capacities across biodiversity data sourced by different systems (OBIS, GBIF, Ecoscope, ...), combined with ii) transfer from source systems (e.g. using Darwin Core standards) or iii) individual file upload facilities;

  • sources of environmental information are added as required through application of streamlined data transfer with other systems (e.g. UNEP-WCMC’s IMAP, EMODNET, OSPAR VME database, International Seabed Authority), or by using the iMarine individual file upload facilities for relevant data sources and maps (e.g. Seamounts on line, predictive map of coldwater coral distribution in the South Pacific).
  • Species modeling algorithms (Aquamaps, Open Modeler). These allow to assess the probability of presence of species on a given location;
  • mapping viewer can allow interactive selection of geographic data sources and visualization, and
  • Statistical services (e.g. “R”, or the iMarire statistical service). These enable to refine scientific evidence of key biodiversity criteria required for the identification of EBSAs-VMEs;

The EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. expects the iMarine initiative (as forum, partnership) to support:

  • A collaborative scientific platform (VREs) which will trigger scientific collaboration among stakeholders involved in deep seas work and willing to share their spatially referenced information
  • The promoting and testing the operationalization of shared standards so to foster the exchange of information among existing systems, e.g. CCAMLR or OSPAR.
  • The enabling of tighter, information based VMEs and EBSAs collaboration

BC3 - Support to regional (Africa) LME pelagic EAF community

It should also be noted that the third business case has been altered to take into account the reduction of funding (minus 1 millions Euros) between the original project proposal and the budget finally agreed for iMarine, and actual partner project opportunities. Regarding the later, both the FAO Smartfish project (supporting development of fishery management plans in the Indian Ocean), and the FAO ABNJ*-Tuna project have been identified for collaboration with iMarine. Both these projects fit within the scope of BC3, and can benefit features developed for BC1 and BC2.

(*) Areas Beyond National Jurisdictions

The EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. expects the data infrastructure to support:

  • The management of classifications, code lists and vocabularies, as well as mapping capacities among these distributed sources. iMarine can support the harmonization among Wiofish, Statbase, FIRMS and Fishcode-STF/Artfish;
  • The interactive delivery of ocean observation satellite products (SST, Salinity, Chlorophyl) to be integrated with biodiversity or fisheries data sources;
  • A scientific collaborative environment (VREVirtual Research Environment.) dedicated to the sharing of by-catch species data and to their spatial analysis. This will enable the mapping of priority areas for these species and their overlap with Tuna fisheries. This would re-use tools already described under BC2; it would also apply VTI or e-logbook exchange mechanisms (BC1) for the transfer of on-board Observer data on by-catch species. The options need to be discussed and experimented with IRD (a iMarine partner) through its Observatoire Thonier Tropical (OTT) and ObsTuna data base.
  • An interactive Tuna Atlas VREVirtual Research Environment. as scientific collaborative environment. This Tuna Atlas would re-use statistical data exchange, harmonization and processing capacities described under BC1 and deliver key fishery indicators as tabular, graphic or map services to the ABNJ portal;
  • An extension of the interactive Tuna Atlas VREVirtual Research Environment. providing algorithms such as for reallocation of catch or effort statistics to variable geographic resolutions; such approach is already followed by IOTC in assessing national catch quota allocations.


The EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. expects the iMarine initiative (as forum, partnership) to support it's functioning:

  • By offering to reuse the tools, services and facilities developed through the iMarine core partnership,
  • By offering a governance mechanism for developing data sharing policies and a framework for developing software of interest to the involved stakeholders

Progress towards Business case realization - as of March 2013

BC1

DG MARE unit responsible for support systems to Monitoring-Control-Surveillance attended iMarine Board 1 and 2, and orientated the iMarine support towards collaboration in FLUX. Through Board activities, the principle of extending FLUX to also cover Formats for scientific data was acknowledged; decision was made to proceed with prototyping a FishFrame database as a beta version for testing support to FLUX implementation. In support to FLUX implementation, there was strong consensus from the Board on the need for code lists management facilities and transformation services. This included assessment of Geospatial services which the iMarine infrastructure can deliver to FLUX. This is where the following collaborations developed in the iMarine liaison page are positioned:

  • FLUX (DG MARE / MCS)
  • VocBench - Cotrix (FAO)
  • VTI2 (NEAFC)

The Board3 meeting will envisage synergies between the Global Record (of fishing vessels), the FAO/VRMF, and FLUX. Towards assessing eligibility of FLUX as a global standard, outreach took place at CWP24 level in order to assess RFMO’s interest, and call for participation. Outreach also took place towards ABNJ-Tuna where certain objectives match the iMarine-Flux-VTI achievable prospects. Similar needs for a scientific exploitation of fisheries operational data were identified with BesTTuna project.

  • ABNJ-Tuna (FAO-GEF)
  • BesTTuna project (Un. Wageningen)

Through the iMarine infrastructure technology developments, enhancements are on-going to manage and harmonize scientific data workflow, to scientifically exploit aggregated statistical time series and to produce indicators in support to policy making. Collaborations here include SDMX registry and associated validation capacities, mapping and visualization capacity, generation of science based indicators supporting decision making.

  • TunaAtlas (FAO, IRD)
  • SEIF2 (EUROSTAT)
  • Data.fao.org (FAO)
  • SDMX EXL (BoI)
  • Fisheries Chronicles (FAO)
  • University of Rennes AgroCampus

BC2

This business opportunity mostly stems from collaborations oganized in the context of BC2 support to FAO’s High seas Deep Seas programme. Among the different data needs listed as part of FAO’s high seas deep seas program, are species identification, authorized vessels, status of fisheries and their management, footprint and historical fisheries information, and a data base on VMEs. On this later aspect, the VME database workshop (Rome, December 2011) more specifically identified issues and data needs. Reducing adverse impacts of fisheries on deep seas ecosystems and preserving biodiversity on Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems requires proper management action taken on the basis of objective scientific evidence. However deep seas are far reaching areas very expensive to monitor, and data has been and will remain collected in very scattered ways. In order to compensate for this situation, a collegial effort is required to assemble all possible sources of information collected by scientists and the fishing industry. Habitats and species predictive modeling is also perceived as an approach which might compensate for lack of comprehensive data coverage.

VME database (FAO) ABNJ deep seas programme (FAO-GEF)

This acknowledged, the iMarine project has initiated the development of advanced capacities in managing Darwin Core related data workflow, such as discovery, merging, taxon reconciliation, occurrence recognition, environmental enrichment. These capacities concern the following collaborations: VLIZ/WORMS, EoL, GBIF, IOC/OBIS - in respect of species and habitats prediction modeling, iMarine already provides access to a broad range of global marine taxonomic and biodiversity data such as WORMS, EoL, GBIF, and OBIS. InDEEP and VLIZ/WoRMS: the above mentioned capacity to access WoRMS data has been exploited to straightforwardly benefit from the InDEEP-WoRMS “Name of portal” collaboration which enables access to the deep seas species sub-set.

ESA, MyOcean, World Ocean Atlas, SeadataNet – iMarine also provides access to environmental remote or in-situ data sources such as ESA, MyOcean, SeadataNet, Such capacity is used by current iMarine partners (Fishbase Information Network, IOC/OBIS, IRD, VLIZ) to improve the quality of their data and enrich species occurrence data with closest estimates in space and time of environmental data. Being fully compliant with OGC geospatial standards, the access to additional sources (e.g. World Ocean Database, Ocean data portal) will be activated with minimum effort. EUBrazilOpenBIO – modeling capacity

Thanks to its capacity to integrate a broad range of analytical tools (currently: R and a powerful statistical manager for statistical analyses, Geoserver for GIS approaches and maps viewing, more than 20 ecological modeling algorithms including Aquamaps) , data managers and scientists are granted access, through VREs, to a performing and great range of analytical, statistical, modeling and visualization tools. They can also run and / or contribute their own algorithms. FIN/Aquamaps and FAO/FishFinder – the objective is to provide harmonized access to distributed registries of aquatic species distribution maps through OGC standard protocols including agreed Metadata standards; this objective is on a good pathway. VLIZ The sub-contract with VLIZ aims to reduce the data-management burden for VLIZ, while increasing access to quality indicators for VLIZ data Quality Assurance services. VLIZ is interested to consume services provided through the iMarine infrastructure that will enable it to improve the quality of its geospatial and biodiversity data. VLIZ closely collaborates with the iMarine partner IOC / Unesco – OBIS. VLIZ has proceeded to install a gCube Node. DG MARE/EMODNet/Biodiversity - The collaboration with EMODNet/Biodiversity is given shape through a collaboration with VLIZ. The consumption of Species data by the infrastructure allows biodiversity data managers to harmonize and upgrade the quality of their data products. The collaboration is currently at the level of aligning standards, but when effective products are made available in the e-InfrastructureAn operational combination of digital technologies (hardware and software), resources (data and services), communications (protocols, access rights and networks), and the people and organizational structures needed to support research efforts and collaboration in the large., this may result in collaboration at service and VREVirtual Research Environment. level. GeoBon –

EUBon – EcoKnows - Finally, the iMarine capabilities have been demonstrated to a large number of other initiatives, and /or interested individuals. Several of these have expressed an interest to become involved, and early negotiations have started to offer services for these initiatives, also with a view on future sustainability, with: GOLD -. IOC/Carribean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) project – iMarine has acknowledged the typical needs of a Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) project which supports the production of a comprehensive set of indicators on the State of the marine environment and ecosystems. Thanks to the above described capacities, iMarine could add value by setting-up VREs with access to all data sources and maps of interest to CLME users, and interactive analytical potential. ESA / Medina project – a preliminary meeting with ESA (an institutional partner of the Medina project) has indicated potential interest in the access to environmental databases and environmental enrichment. FAO/ spatial data infrastructure -

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