National solution for secure long-term storage and online access for Passive Acoustic Monitoring data

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $521,049 via the Partnership Fund to Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) to support three pilot projects. ONC is developing and managing the VENUS and NEPTUNE observatories, which support multi-disciplinary research into coastal and deep ocean environments aimed at increasing knowledge of ocean processes and their global scale impacts.

This new funding will support the development of: secure, long-term storage for—and online access to—passive acoustic monitoring data for marine mammal research; proof of concept for data management services, and the implementation of a data delivery system to provide immediate and open access to real-time oceanographic data; and development of a fisheries science reporting system for high-level, summary fisheries data from across the country, enabling the exchange of up-to-date stock information. This system will also be aligned with DFO data management processes.

Expected outcomes of these projects include:

• The production of an online passive acoustic data archive using existing datasets from recent hydrophone deployments by DFO in coastal British Columbia;
• A complete data and instrument workflow for deep sea and coastal gliders;
• A report/analyses of sensor-based observing technology in Canada including metadata, quality assurance and control procedures, calibration schedules and approaches, data archive structure, and data delivery systems;
• A centralized database for descriptive information about aquatic resource assessment units, the state and evolution of monitored stocks, and related attributes;
• Online tools including a web interface for accessing the database and enabling subscribers to receive automatic updates.

Project number: PAC2016.19
Year: 2016
Partner: Ocean Networks Canada
Lead: Dr. Kate Morin
Ecoregion: Pacific