The European Horizon 2020 Project iAtlantic, “Integrated Assessment of Atlantic Marine Ecosystems in Space and Time “, in which Seascape Belgium is a partner, kicked off in Edinburgh, U.K. on 18-20 June 2019. In the next 4 years, iAtlantic will take an interdisciplinary scientific approach to collect Atlantic deep and open ocean ecosystem data and integrate it with ocean circulation and connectivity models linked with climatic data and forecasts. By bridging ocean observing systems, exchanging data, researchers, and equipment from across the entire Atlantic, the project will predict where and when potentially synergistic effects of global change and multiple ecosystem stressors will occur. This will provide a systematic approach to unify stakeholder efforts to better inform sustainable management and enhance human and observational capacity throughout the Atlantic.
Seascape Belgium will contribute to the spatial and temporal sustainable management goal of iAtlantic by providing an advanced web-based GIS-tool. Furthermore, it will ensure that the wealth of data and data products generated by iAtlantic are made FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable & Reusable) via key marine observation and data sharing facilitates, in particular via EMODnet.
During the kick-off event, the first ever consortium of marine scientist spanning the entire Atlantic region discussed actions, innovations and best practices to meet the ambitious goals of iAtlantic. Already in this initial stage, the pan-Atlantic project gained a lot of media attention.
