From photons to fish, from seconds to centuries; Generating FAIR data from high resolution sensors in the Western Channel Observatory - Requirements and Architecture Document (D2)

The WCO is an oceanographic time-series and marine biodiversity reference site in the Western English Channel. The WCO measures several key parameters that are important to the functioning of the marine ecosystem such as light, temperature, salinity and nutrients. WCO’s L4 station is a UN Ocean Decade-recognised biomolecular observation site and has some of the longest time-series of data in the world for zooplankton and phytoplankton monitoring. The WCO also incorporates the E1 station, providing a hydrographic data series dating from 1903. The complete WCO data set provides a digital resource that benefits scientists, policymakers, businesses, communities and individuals. The majority of these long time-series of data have been sampled at a weekly resolution at fixed locations. While this approach has been successful in developing the current set of impactful WCO data, emerging and disruptive sensor and platform technologies are increasing both spatial and time resolution of these data; with the potential for significant increases in value of these data for the UK’s scientific, policy making and business communities by supporting responses to acute events while also better informing understanding of long-term environmental change. These high resolution data has the potential to provide real value to digital twins, allowing improved interconnection of observational data with models digital solutions including machine-to-machine (M2M) data transfer, higher level artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms. The challenge associated with achieving this potential however, lies in the need for data pipelines to continue to make data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) as the size, frequency and complexity of these data series increases.

This short project, aligning with the NERC Constructing Digital Environment (CDE) programme goals, aims to use FAIR data principles to maximise the impact of new, high resolution marine sensing technologies as they are deployed to augment existing and future time-series data sets. This report is deliverable D2 (Requirements and architecture document).