Technology, Data and New Models for Sustainably Managing Ocean Resources

Abstract

We are in the middle of an explosion in new data on the ocean, creating enormous potential for advances in our understanding and stewardship of ocean resources. An exponential increase in the number and variety of ocean observing systems and other new data sources has created the prospect of a digital ocean ecosystem. Advances in processing techniques and visualisation are rapidly expanding our ability to extract information from those data, and are enabling a wide array of tools to provide real-time information in actionable form to decision-makers, such as policymakers, resource managers, resource users, consumers and citizens.

The Ocean Transition: What to Learn from System Transitions

“…mented reality, additive manufacturing (e.g. 3D printing), artificial intelligence, deep learning through open platforms, robotics, big data, the Internet of Things, and automated decision-making systems including crowd-sourced tracking and monitoring (TWI2050 2019; Leape et al 2020)). Digitalisation hardly featured in the Paris Agreement or UN Agenda 2030, but it is increasingly clear that digital changes are becoming a key enabler of societal transformation (Domingos 2015;Schwab 2016;Tegmark 2017;Craglia et al 2018;TWI2050 2019.…”

“…The core of numerous types of for-profit and non-profit platform economies is clear: designs/data are loaded up in real time for collaborative co-production and optimisation, while users download applications from the knowledge com-mons for use in their local or sectoral environments. Until now, this has never been possible before at scale (Bauwens et al 2019;Leape et al 2020). Bauwens et al (2019) show that each of these major global initiatives have three exemplary features (that are relevant for the purpose of imagining an ocean commons): (1) a 'productive community' of people who voluntarily create new and improve existing understanding in the commons;…”

“…Components of such a knowledge commons for the ocean exist, but there is much more work to do (Box 12.7; Leape et al 2020).…”

“…These platforms are being used to design and improve content in a peer-to-peer sense, and also at multiple scales by decision-making communities such as those for small-scale fisheries and integrated coastal management (Costello et al 2019). They also help collect global satellite remotesensing data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Service (Leape et al 2020). At the global scale, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) harnessed an open-source global data and software platform (InVEST; see Sharp et al 2020) and a networked community of scientists to model for the first time global changes in biodiversity, ecosystem services and the values to people under UN future scenarios, including in the ocean realm (Chaplin-Kramer et al 2019).…”

“…Open and free entry into an ocean-oriented knowledge system would result in continuous, real-time information flows within a public space that cannot be controlled by a few dominant actors. Using satellite and other remotely observed metadata, crowdsourced micro-data from ship-based sensors and uploaded modelling and design information, it will be possible to create wiki-type open databases that give regulatory watchdogs, research institutes, civil society organisations and industry bodies access to unprecedented levels of quality data that can be used to ensure and maintain maximum transparency (Leape et al 2020). This, in turn, will encourage an entirely new generation of (potentially interlinked) observatories motivated by a desire to protect and regenerate the ocean commons.…”