JERICO-S3 Deliverable 5.2. Electronic Handbook for Mature Platforms: Mooring - HF Radar - FerryBox – Glider. Version 1.1.

Abstract

Harmonization across monitoring of coastal Europe has been an emphasis of the JERICO projects. The monitoring resources span geography, diversity of sensors and platforms, and the availability of local resources. With the growing importance of sustainability and understanding of the impacts of human activity on the sea, having a comprehensive and holistic perspective on the coastal seas is essential. This has been expressed through the Marine Strategy Framework Directive1 (MSFD) , https://ec.europa.eu/environment/marine/eu-coast-and-marine-policy/marine-strategy-framework-directive/index_en.htm and other European documents as well as national imperatives. Coastal monitoring has been supported by national and project resources. Creating a harmonized European-wide Research infrastructure for coastal observing and information is a primary goal of JERICO [Farcy, et al, 2019]. Harmonization encompasses many actions. An important one is that data are collected according to commonly-accepted procedures and are interoperable. For this, a series of best practices is evolving for methods used in data collection and, more broadly, in the creation of decisionable information. JERICO has been motivating the creation of best practices for over a decade and has documented procedures in all aspects of coastal observations. These procedures come in many forms (e.g., standard operating procedures or manuals) with varying levels of acceptance and maturity. In some cases, there may be multiple procedures to achieve the same objective, with the result that the selection of the best procedure is unclear. This report addresses some of these challenges by introducing a refined scale of best practice maturity levels. These levels cover two key objectives: the status of the methods documentation and the degree to which the methods have been widely and effectively implemented. This is done through “A Best Practices Maturity Model for Methods and their Applications'', which is introduced for the first time (see the Introduction for more information). The report then collects the best practice documents of JERICO and looks at their levels of maturity. This report addresses best practices in the context of four mature JERICO observation networks: moorings, high frequency radar coastal monitoring, ferry boxes and underwater gliders. These systems are described in detail, covering the platform, the sensors and, with the exception of the moorings, the data management. With this background, the best practices related to each of the systems are given. The practices that exist are important for interoperability and trust in the data, but there are gaps in practices and these will need to be identified and addressed.