NeXOS Project

The European Union, with contributions from Member States and the European Commission, has developed the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) to support a sustainable and integrated approach to the monitoring of the ocean. This Directive includes initiatives to satisfy the Good Environmental Status (GES) of marine waters (also linked to the Water Framework Directive), the Data Collection Framework for Fisheries (DCF), which aims to improve management by collection of high-quality data, the INSPIRE Directive, which aims to improve the accessibility of standardized datasets, and the Blue Growth communication, which addresses growth opportunities for sustainable marine sectors.

These policies have been supported by various projects, initiatives and infrastructures at the European level (ESONET, EMSO, EuroArgo, Eurosites, JERICO, Seadatanet, GROOM, HYPOX, COOPEUS, Ferrybox, etc.) with contributions from a number of NeXOS partners. Most initiatives converge with the need for sensor and infrastructure interoperability. In ESONET, new sensor interfaces which improve sensor interoperability with multiple platforms were developed. These results will be applied and improved in terms of cost, power and size in NeXOS. Georeferencing will also be implemented.