European Ocean Observing Network

EuroSITES is a FP7 Collaborative Project which aims to form an integrated European network of 9 deep-ocean (>1000m) observatories. The EuroSITES network will be coordinated by the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK and involves 13 Partners across Europe and the Cape Verde Islands. EuroSITES will build on the work of FP6 EUR-OCEANS (Work Package 2.1 'Observing Systems') to integrate and enhance the existing European open-ocean observational capacity to encompass the ocean interior, seafloor and subseafloor. EuroSITES will produce a more reliable ocean observatory network with common funding streams and data management systems. The network will also enhance the development of more sophisticated sensors to measure more complex properties of the oceans. This will allow a greater understanding of the impact of the changing global Ocean and Earth on mankind and ecosystems at large. This has implications for policy makers, production industries (e.g. fisheries, agriculture) service industries (e.g. insurance) and society at large. EuroSITES continues the stewardship of data collected in projects ANIMATE and MERSEA and now includes 9 observatories.