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Tag: Seabed 2030

  • Ocean mapping, exploration inventions honored with XPRIZE

    With more than 80 percent of the world’s oceans unmapped, the deep ocean is one of the last unknown areas on Earth. On May 31, teams with unique exploration solutions were honored with the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE.

    XPRIZE is a global competition to advance ocean technologies for rapid, unmanned and high-resolution ocean exploration and discovery. The teams invented new technologies for rapid, unmanned and high-resolution ocean exploration and discovery.

    The results were revealed at an awards ceremony hosted at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, part of the Oceanographic Institute, Prince Albert I of Monaco Foundation.

    The grand prize winner, receiving a total of $4 million, was GEBCO-NF Alumni, an international team based in the United States, while KUROSHIO, from Japan, claimed $1 million as the runner-up.

    GEBCO-NF Alumni was led by Rochelle Wigley, Ph.D., and Yulia Zarayskaya, Ph.D. The 14-nation team integrated existing technologies and ocean-mapping experience with a robust and low-cost unmanned surface vessel, the SeaKIT, along with a novel cloud-based data processing system that allows for rapid seabed visualization, to contribute towards comprehensive mapping of the ocean floor by 2030.

    Runner-up was KUROSHIO, from Yokosuka, Japan, led by Takeshi Nakatani, Ph.D. The team integrated technologies from their partners to create a surface vessel and software platform that can operate with different autonomous underwater vessels, which increases the versatility of their technology.

    Field Testing. To determine winners, the panel of independent judges reviewed data from field testing conducted in Kalamata, Greece, and Ponce, Puerto Rico. In Kalamata, teams had up to 24 hours to map at least 250 square kilometers of the ocean seafloor at five meters horizontal resolution or higher.

    The gold-standard high-resolution baseline maps, against which the team maps were judged, were provided by Ocean Infinity and Fugro, while Esri, the global leader in geographic information system (GIS) software and geodatabase management, donated its ArcGIS Online platform for the teams and judges to use.

    NOAA Prize. The $1 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Bonus Prize went to teams for developing technology that could detect a chemical or biological signal underwater and autonomously track it to its source. The award was split between junior high school team Ocean Quest from San Jose, California, which claimed $800,000 as the winner, and Tampa Deep Sea Xplorers, from Florida, taking $200,000 as runner-up.

    Additionally, the judges unanimously recommended a $200,000 Moonshot Award for Team Tao from the United Kingdom for its unique approach to seafloor mapping, even though they did not meet the criteria of the competition.

    As part of the total $7 million prize purse, four teams opted to compete for the $1 million NOAA Bonus Prize. In a field test in Ponce, Puerto Rico, teams needed to demonstrate that their technology can “sniff out” a specified object in the ocean by first detecting and then tracing a biological or chemical signal to its source.

    The judges determined that no single team was able to trace the signal to its source in the timeframe allowed, so the prize was divided among the two teams that came the closest. In 2018, nine finalist teams were awarded an equal share of the first $1 million of the $7 million prize purse, in recognition of their progress-to-date and to support the teams’ continued technological development.

    Seabed 2030 and science fiction. As part of its post-prize impact work, XPRIZE announced a partnership with Seabed 2030, a collaborative project between The Nippon Foundation and The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) to inspire the complete mapping of the world’s ocean by 2030 and to compile all bathymetric data into the freely-available GEBCO Ocean Map.

    Additionally, and in anticipation of World Oceans Day on June 8th, XPRIZE will launch a science fiction ocean anthology featuring 19 original short stories and artwork set in a future when technology has helped unlock the secrets of the world’s oceans.

  • Fugro bathymetric maps support global initiative Seabed 2030

    Fugro is supporting NF-GEBCO Seabed 2030, a global initiative to produce a definitive, high-resolution bathymetric map of the entire world’s ocean floor by the year 2030.

    The initiative is being facilitated by the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) project in partnership with The Nippon Foundation as a means to inform global policy, improve sustainable use and advance scientific research.

    Less than 20 percent of the world’s oceans are mapped using modern survey techniques. Accurate seabed measurements (bathymetry) are important for numerous government, scientific and industry applications, according to Fugro.

    “As the world’s largest offshore survey company, Fugro is in a position to help close this data gap, and we are committed to doing our part through the Seabed 2030 project,” said David Millar, Fugro’s government accounts director in the Americas.

    One of the primary ways Fugro is supporting Seabed 2030 is through crowdsourced bathymetry data contributions.

    In 2017 the company devised a methodology for collecting valuable high-resolution bathymetry datasets while its vessels are transiting between survey projects. The approach is made possible through Fugro’s Office Assisted Remote Services (OARS), its proprietary technology that enables safe and efficient data acquisition without the need for dedicated survey staff on board.

    In this way, valuable data can be collected from transiting vessels with minimal effect on Fugro’s standard operating procedures.

    In 2017, Fugro deployed its in-transit data collection methodology on two survey vessels, delivering approximately 65,000 square kilometers of crowdsourced bathymetry data to GEBCO.

    The company has recently expanded that collection capacity to include four survey vessels and intends eventually to incorporate the approach across its entire global survey fleet to make an increasingly significant impact on the Seabed 2030 program.

    “Fugro has displayed exemplary corporate leadership by sharing transit data from two of its survey vessels,” acknowledged Seabed 2030 Project Director Satinder Bindra. “In the coming months we look forward to receiving more transit data from all its survey vessels, which we believe will serve as a shining example to others in the industry and play an important role in helping us map the entire ocean floor for the benefit of humanity by 2030.”

    Along with its own data contributions, Fugro is working with its clients to investigate how their datasets (existing and planned) may be incorporated into the Seabed 2030 program. In some instances, data sharing is straightforward, but in many others, datasets contain sensitive information.

    Reducing the data resolution to a suitable degree and delaying the release of datasets until an acceptable amount of time has passed can mitigate these sensitivities and ensure the integrity of client-owned data.

    The company is also helping to establish a workflow for integrating third-party datasets into the overall Seabed 2030 project database. The workflow will address such things as data formats and metadata standards, with the goal of simplifying and accelerating the rate of crowdsourced contributions and data sharing arrangements.

    “We are proud to continue our support of the Seabed 2030 programme and to lead industry participation in this way,” Millar said. “As an appreciable portion of our work is ocean related, Seabed 2030 provides a perfect opportunity for us to contribute to global society and practice good ocean stewardship.”