Search

While fishhook technology is currently known to date back to ca. 22,000 cal. BP, almost all Pleistocene-aged assemblages consist of less than 10 artifacts, restricting the ability of archaeologists...

As an important part of earth sciences, marine sciences are closely related to economic and social development, marine security, and global change. They are a source of knowledge for earth system sciences, an important basis for sustainable development, and underpin strategies of maritime power. This paper summarizes trends in the development of marine sciences and their main challenges in China. It is important to establish a sound subdiscipline of marine sciences to carry out original work, to obtain basic theoretical data, and to innovate for future development. The paper describes the trends in marine science funding allocation, and details some of the leading national basic marine science research around the world to provide context for the development of marine sciences in China. The paper reviews the succession process of basic research funding allocation. The discipline application code system of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), as the important framework of NSFC funding, determines the development of marine science research. It must be continuously updated and developed in accordance with the rules of development and the requirements of social services. Accurately determining the application codes is essential for the NSFC to allocate funding appropriately. In the 1980s and 1990s, the marine sciences were divided into eight subdisciplines. In 2008, the NSFC carried out a large-scale revision, and the marine sciences were divided into the current 11 subdisciplines. The paper introduces a new application code system for marine sciences and describes its development process. In the last ten years, marine sciences have developed rapidly, and the previous application codes could not adapt to the current development and trends in marine science and technology. Under the unified deployment and guidance of the Department of Earth Sciences of the NSFC, the Oceanography Group launched a systematic demonstration and overall redesign of the application codes of marine sciences in 2018. The aim was to better reflect the systematization, completeness, and progressiveness of the marine sciences system in the new era, to guide the direction of marine science research, and to promote the interdisciplinary, balanced, and coordinated development of marine sciences. Combining “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches, the group further analyzed the trends in the development of marine science research and carried out a systematic critical review. Considering the current situation and the challenges in achieving the coordinated development of marine science and technology and its social impacts, the group proposed a new version of the system comprising 15 application codes, covering three directions of “Branch Discipline”, “Supporting Technology”, and “Development Field”. “Branch Discipline” comprises six codes: D0601 Physical oceanography, D0602 marine chemistry, D0603 marine geology and geophysics, D0604 biological oceanography and marine biological resources, D0605 marine ecology and environmental science, and D0606 estuarine and coastal science. “Supporting Technology” comprises three codes: D0607 Marine remote sensing, D0608 marine physics, and observation and detection technology, and D0609 marine data science and information system. “Development Field” comprises six codes: D0610 Marine system and global change, D0611 marine engineering and environmental effects, D0612 marine disasters, and disaster prevention and mitigation, D0613 marine energy and resources, D0614 coordinated sea and land development, and sustainable development, and D0615 polar science. The updated system is forward-looking, coordinated, logical, and consistent, and better supports China’s basic marine science and major national requirements. Last but not least, the paper describes the Shiptime Sharing Project to support the Open Cruise Program, as well as an international cooperation network established by the NSFC. The trends in the development of these projects and future prospects are also discussed. The revision of the application codes has comprehensively organized funding for marine sciences in the new era. The new codes specify directions for the development of marine technology, and provide a means for the implementation of the national marine strategy through funding allocation. Basic marine scientific research will be better served by this optimized NSFC marine funding allocation system.

Delegations are in the final stages of negotiating the proposedAgreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction(BBNJAgreementorAgreement). TheAgreementwill have tremendous scope. Geographically it covers all ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction, meaning approximately 60 percent of the earth’s surface. Substantively it deals with a range of complex topics necessary for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, including marine genetic resources, sharing of benefits, measures such as area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, environmental impact assessments and capacity-building and the transfer of marine technology. Existing scholarship primarily explores the substantive choices for theAgreement; little examines its proposed institutional structure. This article critically assesses the competing positions advanced during negotiations for theAgreement’sinstitutional structure – the ‘global’ and ‘regional’ positions – and reviews the middle, or ‘compromise’ position adopted by the draft text. It suggests that both global and regional actors will be necessary to conserve and sustainably use marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, and that some form of coordinating mechanism is required to allocate responsibility for particular tasks. Two principles are proposed for use in combination to provide a mechanism to help coordinateAgreementorgans (global) and regional or sectoral bodies, namely, the principles of subsidiarity and cooperation. These principles are found in existing international and regional structures but are advanced here in dynamic forms, allowing for temporary or quasi-permanent allocation of competences, which can change or evolve over time. This position is also grounded in the international law of treaties and furthers dynamic views of regional and global ocean governance by offering practical coordinating principles that work with the existingAgreementtext.

Over one hundred governments are currently negotiating a new legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). The new agreement is to address four broad themes: marine genetic resources (MGRs); area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs); environmental impact assessments (EIAs); and capacity building and the transfer of marine technology (CB&TT). Although a large corpus of scientific BBNJ literature exists, a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of the academic debate is currently missing. This systematic review seeks to fill this gap by examining the main priority topics and recommendations in a sample of 140 multidisciplinary, geographically diverse publications. As an up-to-date summary and analysis, it is intended for researchers from diverse academic disciplines in the natural and social sciences, policy-makers, and practitioners. It untangles the complex BBNJ negotiations, highlights the policy relevance of existing work, and facilitates links between science, policy, and practice. It presents recommendations made in the literature sample for each of the four package elements of the future treaty and identifies four overarching themes: ocean connectivity, institutional design, the role of science, and digital technology. This paper identifies two important gaps that need to be addressed if we are to conserve marine biodiversity in international waters: the science-policy interfaces and the need for transformative change.

Marine technology transfer and capacity building are key elements in the development of a historic new agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ agreement) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This vast, deep ocean area remains largely unexplored and poorly understood. Scientific knowledge gaps impede informed decision-making, and most countries lack the capacity to participate in ocean science activities in ABNJ or to benefit from discoveries of new ocean life, habitats, and processes. Consequently, science must play a central role in capacity building aspirations, however, the link between technology transfer and marine scientific research has yet to be examined in depth. Here, we examine the UNCLOS framework for marine technology transfer and highlight linkages with marine scientific research, identifying four key themes for capacity building: access to data, information and knowledge; equipment; training; and collaboration. We provide examples to illustrate current practices and identify gaps in implementation. We show that marine technology transfer and marine scientific research inherently link in principle and in practice. We propose measures for the BBNJ agreement to strengthen the international framework for the transfer of marine technology in order to boost marine scientific research collaboration, fill knowledge gaps, and strengthen capacity through inclusive international participation.

Course keeping for ships is the core of automatic navigation in marine technology. A nonlinear Nomoto model and a maneuvering model group (MMG) model of Yupeng ship are established and verified by the turning trial at sea, then an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) controller is trained by learning the actual ship trial data. There is a limit to the achievable performance of ANFIS controller as the structure is fixed in the training process, many researchers pursue advanced control strategies to improve performance. In this research, the performance is improved in another way, it modulates control error using proposed nonlinear feedback scheme. The simulation result shows that the settling time of nonlinear controllers decreases considerably, dropping by 62.5% of arc tangent function, dropping by 29.2% of bipolar sigmoid function and dropping by 37.5% of sine function based on nonlinear Nomoto model, and the settling time of nonlinear sine controller decreases by 13.3% based on MMG model. It is a useful research that the control performance is improved by nonlinear feedback technique for project application in marine practice.

Ships and boats form the foundations of the maritime connectivity that is a central part of our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean. While the general chronological sequence of sail and sailing-rig development is well established, the implications are less-well discussed. This article sets out how sails and sailing rigs developed in antiquity, with emphasis on the Greco-Roman world. Subsequently, instances of innovation are defined. Why specific pieces of maritime technology were, or were not, widely adopted is considered. Long-term technological continuity can be comprehended, and a shared maritime culture of sailing in the ancient Mediterranean is suggested.

The growing need for interoperability among the different oceanic monitoring systems to deliver services able to answer the requirements of stakeholders and end-users led to the development of a low-cost machine-to-machine communication system able to guarantee data reliability over marine paths. In this framework, an experimental evaluation of the performance of long-range (LoRa) technology in a fully operational marine scenario has been proposed. In-situ tests were carried out exploiting the availability of (i) a passenger vessel and (ii) a research vessel operating in the Ligurian basin (North-Western Mediterranean Sea) both hosting end-nodes, and (iii) gateways positioned on mountains and hills in the inland areas. Packet loss ratio, packet reception rate, received signal strength indicator, signal to noise, and expected signal power ratio were chosen as metrics in line of sight and not the line of sight conditions. The reliability of Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) transmission over the sea has been demonstrated up to more than 110 km in a free space scenario and for more than 20 km in a coastal urban environment.

In recent years, the Chinese government attaches great importance to the development of a high-quality marine economy. The Ministry of Natural Resources issued the opinions on promoting the high-quality development of the marine economy, which pointed out that technology innovation should play a leading role in the high-quality development of the marine economy. In this paper, we use a comprehensive weight model including the entropy method and the best-worst method (BWM) to measure the level of marine technology innovation in China's coastal regions from 2006 to 2016. Then, we use the threshold regression model to examine the role of marine technology innovation in the high-quality development of the marine economy. The results show that there is a nonlinear relationship between marine technology innovation and high-quality development of the marine economy. Furthermore, we find that when the level of marine technology innovation exceeds a certain threshold, its promotion effect of the high-quality development of the marine economy gradually weakens. Finally, we analyze the reasons for the above findings and discuss the corresponding policy suggestions.

Pacific Island Countries have limited capacity to engage in scientific research involving marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction (abnj). Marine scientific research and capacity development are central to the regime for technology transfer established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (losc), but gaps and ambiguities weaken this framework. In this article, options to strengthen scientific capacity in Pacific Island Countries, through the development of a new international legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in abnj under the losc, are examined. The international framework for technology transfer could be strengthened by fostering an integrated approach to the advancement, sharing and application of scientific knowledge. Coordination and collaboration at global and regional levels will be required to increase marine science cooperation, improve access to data and information, deliver training, and overcome barriers to develop institutional and individual scientific capacity.

An improved understanding of the effects of floating solar platforms on the ecosystem is necessary to define acceptable and responsible real-world field implementations of this new marine technology. This study examines a number of potential effects of offshore floating solar photovoltaic (PV) platforms on the hydrodynamics and net primary production in a coastal sea for the first time. Three contrasting locations within the North Sea (a shallow and deeper location with well-mixed conditions and a seasonally stratifying location) have been analysed using a water column physical–biogeochemical model: the General Ocean Turbulence Model coupled with the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model – Biogeochemical Flux Model (GOTM-ERSEM-BFM). The results show strong dependence on the characteristics of the location (e.g. mixing and stratification) and on the density of coverage with floating platforms. The overall response of the system was separated into contributions by platform-induced light deficit, shielding by the platforms of the sea surface from wind and friction induced by the platforms on the currents. For all three locations, light deficit was the dominant effect on the net primary production. For the two well-mixed locations, the other effects of the platforms resulted in partial compensation for the impact of light deficit, while for the stratified location, they enhanced the effects of light deficit. For up to 20 % coverage of the model surface with platforms, the spread in the results between locations was relatively small, and the changes in net primary production were less than 10 %. For higher percentages of coverage, primary production decreased substantially, with an increased spread in response between the sites. The water column model assumes horizontal homogeneity in all forcings and simulated variables, also for coverage with floating platforms, and hence the results are applicable to very-large-scale implementations of offshore floating platforms that are evenly distributed over areas of at least several hundreds of square kilometres, such that phytoplankton remain underneath a farm throughout several tidal cycles. To confirm these results, and to investigate more realistic cases of floating platforms distributed unevenly over much smaller areas with horizontally varying hydrodynamic conditions, in which phytoplankton can be expected to spend only part of the time underneath a farm and effects are likely to be smaller, spatial detail and additional processes need to be included. To do so, further work is required to advance the water column model towards a three-dimensional modelling approach.

International audience; Cabled coastal observatories are often seen as future-oriented marine technology that enables science to conduct observational and experimental studies under water year-round, independent of physical accessibility to the target area. Additionally, the availability of (unrestricted) electricity and an Internet connection under water allows the operation of complex experimental setups and sensor systems for longer periods of time, thus creating a kind of laboratory beneath the water. After successful operation for several decades in the terrestrial and atmospheric research field, remote controlled observatory technology finally also enables marine scientists to take advantage of the rapidly developing communication technology. The continuous operation of two cabled observatories in the southern North Sea and off the Svalbard coast since 2012 shows that even highly complex sensor systems, such as stereo-optical cameras, video plankton recorders or systems for measuring the marine carbonate system, can be successfully operated remotely year-round facilitating continuous scientific access to areas that are difficult to reach, such as the polar seas or the North Sea. Experience also shows, however, that the challenges of operating a cabled coastal observatory go far beyond the provision of electricity and network connection under water. In this manuscript, the essential developmental stages of the "COSYNA Shallow Water Underwater Node" system are presented, and the difficulties and solutions that have arisen in the course of operation since 2012 are addressed with regard to technical, organizational and scientific aspects.

Marine environments are currently subject to strong ecological pressure due to local and global anthropic stressors, such as pollutants and atmospheric inputs, which also cause ocean acidification and warming. These strains can result in biogeochemical cycle variations, environmental pollution, and changes in benthic-pelagic coupling processes. Two new devices, the Amerigo Lander and the Automatic Benthic Chamber (CBA), have been developed to measure the fluxes of dissolved chemical species between sediment and the water column, to assess the biogeochemical cycle and benthic-pelagic coupling alterations due to human activities. The Amerigo Lander can operate in shallow as well as deep water (up to 6000 m), whereas the CBA has been developed for the continental shelf (up to 200 m). The lander can also be used to deploy a range of instruments on the seafloor, to study the benthic ecosystems. The two devices have successfully been tested in a variety of research tasks and environmental impact assessments in shallow and deep waters. Their measured flux data show good agreement and are also consistent with previous data.

Few studies have discussed marine industrial upgrading and its association with marine economic growth and technological innovation. This study uses a vector error correction model (VECM) to explore the short-term and long-term relationship between marine economic growth, technological innovation, and industrial upgrading in China from 2006 to 2016. Results reveal the existence of two co-integration relationships between the three variables: specifically, in the long term, marine economic growth positively affects marine technological innovation, and vice versa; however, neither promote industrial upgrading and neither are promoted thereby. These findings indicate that marine economic growth and technological innovation are mutually promoting in the long term, but the mutual driving mechanism between the upgrading of marine industry and the other two variables has not yet formed. The study also reveals that the shift from secondary industry toward tertiary industry is not conducive to improving marine technological innovation, which is especially alarming given the current service-oriented tendency of China's marine industry. Key policy implications include the need to expand the relative size of the marine economy, prioritize developing marine secondary industry, develop marine technology, and train high-level marine professionals.

Marine scientific research is crucial to forge solutions in the development of a new international legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . The transfer of marine technology, capacity development and marine genetic resources are key issues. This paper examines how the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), as a competent international organisation for marine scientific research and technology transfer, can inform the development of the instrument. Synergies between marine technology transfer and non-monetary benefit sharing of genetic resources are illustrated. Four key lessons from the IOC are examined: 1. Coordinating international cooperation in marine scientific research; 2. Enabling open access to data and knowledge; 3. Facilitating capacity development through scientific training and education; and 4. Governance of marine scientific research. Realising the potential of the IOC to advance governance solutions for ABNJ will depend on increased political will from Member States and strengthened partnerships to reduce resource constraints and enhance the IOC's capacity at global and regional scales.

The euRathlon project was an FP7-funded Coordination and Support Action (2013‐2015). Its main aim was to organize outdoor robotics competitions in realistic search and rescue response scenarios for cooperative land, sea, and air robots. Participant teams were requested to test the intelligence and autonomy of their robots in scenarios inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident. In the project's third year euRathlon culminated with the organization of the first outdoor multi-domain search and rescue robotics competition in the world: the euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge. Sea, air, and land robots were asked to cooperate acting as a robotic intervention team in a scenario simulating an industrial area ravaged by a tsunami. The Grand Challenge was held in Piombino, Italy, in the surroundings of the Tor del Sale power plant, from September 17 to 25. To prepare the teams for the Grand Challenge, two competitions, dedicated to land and marine robots, respectively, took place in 2013 and 2014. In all the competitions, a strong effort was made in benchmarking what led to meaningful and reasonable scoring principles. Workshops and educational activities complemented the competitions. In this paper, we will focus on the marine robotics competitions of euRathlon with a particular focus on the Grand Challenge. Both technical achievements and general results are presented. The results in terms of team participation and the fruitful effort in dissemination led to establish euRathlon Grand Challenge as the de facto leading search and rescue outdoor robotics competition in Europe.

The problem of motion control of underwater vehicles in both the fully actuated and under-actuated configurations is often confronted by the marine technology community. This paper presents a nonlinear control method for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) traveling along a planned planar path in both actuation configurations. The common objectives of path-following control for both fully actuated and under-actuated vehicles are described, and the differences in the necessary path-following control designs are analyzed, showing that the side-slip angle of the vehicle plays an important role in the evolution of the dynamics of AUVs with different actuation configurations. Based on the presented analysis, nonlinear controllers for the two types of AUV configurations are proposed, and the inherent characteristics of under-actuation and full actuation are revealed by a dedicated analysis of numerical simulation paradigms, the results of which will be instrumental in guiding marine technology engineers in the practical design and control of AUVs.

With one small move across a street, NOAA Fisheries, our nation's steward of marine ecosystems, made a giant leap into the future of ocean science and technology development. The new Southwest Fisheries Science Center facility in La Jolla, California, houses dozens of interdisciplinary research and engineering groups and features a world-class Ocean Technology Development Tank that expands the possibilities for advancing marine industry and science. This 20 × 10 × 10-meter, two-million-liter, freshwater or seawater “Tech Tank” is clear, quiet, and large enough to calibrate and test a wide variety of sensitive instruments with minimal boundary effects. The tank's temperature, salinity, and circulation can be made to mimic the broad range of water conditions encountered in the field, its water conditioning system greatly mitigates microbubbles and turbidity, and it can accommodate live marine animals. This unique combination of features opens doors to efficient engineering and scientific experimentation. The Tech Tank, supported by scientists and engineers and co-located with other state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, is a unique national resource for marine research and development and a catalyst for government, academic, and industry partnerships. The broad range of new possibilities is exemplified by multiple recent collaborative developments of acoustic and optical sensors and sensor platforms that effectively expand the boundaries of oceanic sampling, particularly near the sea surface, seabed, and seashore, to more efficiently and accurately monitor large marine ecosystems.

International audience; Recently, measurements of oxygen concentration in the ocean -one of the most classical parameters in chemical oceanography-are experiencing a revival. This is not surprising, given the key role of oxygen for assessing the status of the marine carbon cycle and feeling the pulse of the biological pump. The revival, however, has to a large extent been driven by the availability of robust optical oxygen sensors and their painstakingly thorough characterization. For autonomous observations, oxygen optodes are the sensors of choice: They are used abundantly on Biogeochemical-Argo floats, gliders and other autonomous oceanographic observation platforms. Still, data quality and accuracy are often suboptimal, in some part because sensor and data treatment are not always straightforward and/or sensor characteristics are not adequately taken into account. Here, we want to summarize the current knowledge about oxygen optodes, their working principle as well as their behavior with respect to oxygen, temperature, hydrostatic pressure, and response time. The focus will lie on the most widely used and accepted optodes made by Aanderaa and Sea-Bird. We revisit the essentials and caveats of in-situ in air calibration as well as of time response correction for profiling applications, and provide requirements for a successful field deployment. In addition, all required steps to post-correct oxygen optode data will be discussed. We hope this summary will serve as a comprehensive, yet concise reference to help people get started with oxygen observations, ensure successful sensor deployments and acquisition of highest quality data, and facilitate post-treatment of oxygen data. In the end, we hope that this will lead to more and higher-quality oxygen observations and help to advance our understanding of ocean biogeochemistry in a changing ocean.

The handling of anchor cable on merchant ships was the subject of much innovation in the early nineteenth century. In warships anchor cable was handled by capstans operated by large crews. On merchant ships, with restricted space and manpower, a windlass was preferred. This article examines the development of the hand-powered windlass from the traditional form to the use of ratchets, gears and sprockets to improve its handling capabilities. The operation of windlasses was a concern of the Academie des Sciences and the large number of patents taken out in Britain and America demonstrate the ways in which science and practical innovation influenced the development of technology for handling anchor cables prior to the application of steam.

The potential impacts of underwater noise on marine mammals are widely recognised, but uncertainty over variability in baseline noise levels often constrains efforts to manage these impacts. This paper characterises natural and anthropogenic contributors to underwater noise at two sites in the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation, an important marine mammal habitat that may be exposed to increased shipping activity from proposed offshore energy developments. We aimed to establish a pre-development baseline, and to develop ship noise monitoring methods using Automatic Identification System (AIS) and time-lapse video to record trends in noise levels and shipping activity. Our results detail the noise levels currently experienced by a locally protected bottlenose dolphin population, explore the relationship between broadband sound exposure levels and the indicators proposed in response to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and provide a ship noise assessment toolkit which can be applied in other coastal marine environments.

The beginning of twenty-first century is characterized with important changes in world shipping and exploitation of ocean resources. Three important trends are clearly visible: environment protection, safety and economy. They materialize in important changes in the structure of world fleet where some existing ship types are going to disappear and new ship types emerge. Increasing the size of some ship types is another visible tendency. Stress on environment protection has serious impact on the hydrodynamic characteristics of ships whether with regard to safety zero accident rate is the goal. Important challenges to ship hydrodynamics caused by those tendencies are discussed in the paper.

Some parts of the global ocean, apart from their traditional use (maritime transport, fishery, navy), becomes suitable for other technical activities and investments (e.g. gas and electricity transmission, wind farms, gas and oil extraction, gravel extraction, coastal protection). These activities interact with marine environment as well as can interfere with navigation. This paper presents relating to the Baltic Sea large scale technical activities as well as points up their possible individual environmental effects.

SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON's legendary rescue of the entire crew of the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1916 is one of the great tales from the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. He may well have lost his ship - the Endurance - but he didn't lose a man, largely due to an extraordinary sea voyage he accomplished through 800 miles of the roughest sea in the world in a modified whaler little more than 20ft long.

Since its founding, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has pioneered unique capabilities for accessing the deep ocean and its inhabitants through focused peer relationships between scientists and engineers. This focus has enabled breakthroughs in our understanding of life in the sea, leading to fundamental advances in describing the biology and the ecology of open-ocean and deep-sea animals. David Packard’s founding principle was the application of technological advances to studying the deep ocean, in part because he recognized the critical importance of this habitat in a global context. Among other fields, MBARI’s science has benefited from applying novel methodologies in molecular biology and genetics, imaging systems, and in situ observations. These technologies have allowed MBARI’s bioluminescence and biodiversity laboratory and worldwide collaborators to address centuries-old questions related to the biodiversity, behavior, and bio-optical properties of organisms living in the water column, from the surface into the deep sea. Many of the most interesting of these phenomena are in the midwater domain—the vast region of ocean between the sunlit surface waters and the deep seafloor.

In European seas, ocean monitoring strategies in terms of key parameters, space and time scale vary widely for a range of technical and economic reasons. Nonetheless, the growing interest in the ocean interior promotes the investigation of processes such as oxygen consumption, primary productivity and ocean acidity requiring that close attention is paid to the instruments in terms of measurement setup, configuration, calibration, maintenance procedures and quality assessment. To this aim, two separate hardware and software tools were developed in order to test and simultaneously intercompare several oxygen probes and fluorometers/turbidimeters, respectively in the same environmental conditions, with a configuration as close as possible to real in-situ deployment. The chamber designed to perform chlorophyll-a and turbidity tests allowed for the simultaneous acquisition of analogue and digital signals of several sensors at the same time, so it was sufficiently compact to be used in both laboratory and onboard vessels. Methodologies and best practice committed to the intercomparison of dissolved oxygen sensors and fluorometers/turbidimeters have been used, which aid in the promotion of interoperability to access key infrastructures, such as ocean observatories and calibration facilities. Results from laboratory tests as well as field tests in the Mediterranean Sea are presented.

One of the main recent research trends of the Italian Interuniversity Research Center on Integrated Systems for Marine Environment (ISME) is the use of marine cooperative teams of autonomous robots within the fields of security, prevention and management of emergencies at sea. Such fields are of worldwide interest for obvious reasons, but they have recently gained relevance in the current historical moment, especially in the Mediterranean sea. Within such a dramatic context, the use of robots could certainly provide helpful for the execution of patrolling and detection, identification and classification of interesting elements, such as people to be saved or oil leaks, as well as the successive execution of the intervention/rescue strategy. This paper presents the Key Enabling Technologies as well as some Key Research Areas that are being currently investigated by ISME toward the ambitious objective of employing robotic solutions for the management of emergencies at sea.

The widespread use of the Automatic Identification System (AIS) has had a significant impact on maritime technology. AIS enables the Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) not only to offer commonly known functions such as identification, tracking and monitoring of vessels, but also to provide rich real-time information that is useful for marine traffic investigation, statistical analysis and theoretical research. However, due to the rapid accumulation of AIS observation data, the VTS platform is often unable quickly and effectively to absorb and analyze it. Traditional observation and analysis methods are becoming less suitable for the modern AIS generation of VTS. In view of this, we applied the same data mining technique used for business intelligence discovery (in Customer Relation Management (CRM) business marketing) to the analysis of AIS observation data. This recasts the marine traffic problem as a business-marketing problem and integrates technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), database management systems, data warehousing and data mining to facilitate the discovery of hidden and valuable information in a huge amount of observation data. Consequently, this provides the marine traffic managers with a useful strategic planning resource.

This article introduces an issue of the Marine Technology Society Journal focused on the understanding and ongoing exchange of information on underwater munitions. In June 2003, the Canadian Standing Senate Committee for Fisheries and Oceans on Fish Habitat listened to a panel of witnesses urgently request greater federal involvement from entities other than the Department of National Defense in addressing the issue of underwater munitions in both Canadian and international waters. When there was a lack of response from governments, as well as the United Nations, the First International Conference on Chemical and Conventional Munitions convened in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in October 2007. Over 190 delegates from 14 countries affected by underwater munitions attended the conference and collectively submitted more than 50 papers. The author discusses the history of underwater munitions and explores relationships among international stakeholders which allow them to build on each others' experiences. The increasing awareness of and interest in identification and assessment of potential risks to human health and the environment by underwater munitions is explored.

There are approximately 100 active manned submersibles in operation around the world; in this overview we refer to all non-military manned underwater vehicles that are used for scientific, research, tourism, and commercial diving applications, as well as personal leisure craft. The Marine Technology Society committee on Manned Underwater Vehicles (MUV) maintains the only comprehensive database of active submersibles operating around the world and endeavors to continually bring together the international community of manned submersible operators, manufacturers and industry professionals. The database is maintained through contact with manufacturers, operators and owners through the Manned Submersible program held yearly at the Underwater Intervention conference.The most comprehensive and detailed overview of this industry is given during the UI conference, and this article cannot cover all developments within the allocated space; therefore our focus is on a compendium of activity provided from the most dynamic submersible builders, operators and research organizations that contribute to the industry and who share their latest information through the MTS committee. This article presents a short overview of submersible activity in 2007, including new submersible construction, operation and regulatory activity of research, tourism, commercial diving and recreational applications. The scope of this article is limited to active atmospheric submersibles, and does not include historical, ambient pressure, or laid-up submersibles, which would be an entire article on its own. For a complete overview that includes submersibles not covered in this article, readers are invited to peruse the MTS Manned Underwater Vehicle online database at the committee's website (www.mtsmuv.org).

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is increasingly being used as an important tool for Integrated Coastal Zone Management in marine areas. Many coastal states, as well as the European Union, have incorporated MSP into their legal system. The increase in hydrocarbon activities in the Black Sea has put additional pressures on a sea already considered to be environmentally at risk. The current regional legal framework for the Black Sea remains inadequate to meet the pressures of increased transport and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources. This paper will examine MSP in general and its application in the Black Sea.