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DTO-BioFlow was well represented at the EMODnet Open Conference 2023 in both poster and plenary sessions and with many project partners attending. With a focus on EMODnet’s role in “Powering the European Marine Data Ecosystem for a Digital and Green Future”, this dynamic and content-packed conference, connecting diverse stakeholders, highlighted one of EMODnet’s important roles in the EDITO-Infra project to develop the core infrastructure of the EU DTO as a common data lake, together with the Copernicus Marine Service.
In a presentation on “EMODnet's contribution to EU DTO via EDITO-Infra” during Session 2 on “EMODnet for the Digital Era”, Francisco Hernandez (VLIZ) introduced EDITO-Infra. Recognising that many projects would ultimately contribute to the EU DTO, he touched on the role of DTO-BioFlow in contributing sustained flows of biodiversity monitoring data via EMODnet Biology to the core infrastructure.
Introducing this session, John Bell (DG Research and Innovation), stressed how “the DTO can push the boundaries of our knowledge and understanding of the ocean and help us to reach the objectives of the EU Mission to Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030”. With one of the Mission’s three objectives being to ‘protect and restore biodiversity’ DTO-BioFlow will play an important role to increase the flow of biodiversity monitoring data, as well as developing digital tools and services to build the biodiversity component of the EU DTO, i.e. digital replicas of marine ecological processes.
The innovative end-to-end approach envisaged in the DTO-BioFlow concept was introduced by Carlota Muñiz (VLIZ), as one of the EMODnet Community Perspectives in her poster pitch presentation, “DTO-BioFlow: Integrating Marine Biodiversity Data and Driving Sustainable Integration”. In just one minute, Carlota, provided a succinct overview of the DTO-BioFlow objectives and workflow, from data source to user application.
It was clear from the conference that robust and standardised data are central to the success and the promise of the EU DTO, to integrate Europe’s wealth of ocean knowledge and make this available and usable with societal value. DTO-BioFlow will play an important role to help build the biodiversity component, supporting the Mission’s actions to protect and restore biodiversity and providing end-users with the data, tools and services to support their activities and inform their decision-making.
- The conference programme, recordings of plenary sessions, presentations and photos can be found via the conference website.
- The DTO-BioFlow poster can be seen in the Virtual Exhibition.
