UN Ocean Decade Engagement

UNOD Challenges

Knowledge and Solutions

1. Understand and map land and sea-based sources of pollutants and contaminants and their potential impacts on human health and ocean ecosystems, and develop solutions to remove or mitigate them.
   • OceanPredict.US will develop, integrate, leverage, and exploit national capabilities to address global and basin-scale challenges and issues impacting nested regional issues and challenges being addressed through the Integrated Coastal Ocean Forecast Systems (ICOFS) Ocean-Shot, such as monitoring and predicting transnational and open-ocean advected pollutants, such as Fukushima radioactive contamination, oil spills, and plastics, thereby enabling an integrated U.S. response.

2. Understand the effects of multiple stressors on ocean ecosystems, and develop solutions to monitor, protect, manage and restore ecosystems and their biodiversity under changing environmental, social and climate conditions.
   • Marine ecosystems span domains extending beyond regional boundaries; therefore, OceanPredict.US will provide the necessary broader context and capabilities for assessing, monitoring, modeling, and predicting impacting factors and outcomes, providing the understanding needed for informed decision-making, as well as for application to and integration with nested regional efforts, such as those addressed by the ICOFS Ocean-Shot, for such issues as fisheries, invasive species, phenology, ocean warming, acidification, eutrophication, and hypoxia.

3. Generate knowledge, support innovation, and develop solutions to optimize the role of the ocean in sustainably feeding the world’s population under changing environmental, social and climate conditions.
   • Sustainability requires understanding the evolving context of the ecosystem, as well as predictions of future states, to optimize decision-making; consequently, OceanPredict.US aims to provide capabilities for assessing, integrating, and predicting the relevant physical, biogeochemical, and social factors critical to ecological sustainability across spatial and temporal scales

4. Generate knowledge, support innovation, and develop solutions for equitable and sustainable development of the ocean economy under changing environmental, social and climate conditions.
   • Equitable and sustainable development of the ocean (“blue”) economy requires development, sharing, informed decision-making, and sustainable exploitation of ocean knowledge; consequently, OceanPredict.US targets the full operational oceanography value chain, spanning: needs, observations, data management, analysis, ocean prediction, dissemination via a digital ocean, and information service delivery, culminating in end use while enabling innovation and value-added development.
   • workforce, ice-diminished Arctic (transportation, resource extraction, …), indigenous communities, pelagic fisheries

5. Enhance understanding of the ocean-climate nexus and generate knowledge and solutions to mitigate, adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change across all geographies and at all scales, and to improve services including predictions for the ocean, climate and weather.
   • The time scales for ocean processes, variability, and change span seasons, years, and decades, strongly controlling and impacting global and regional climate-scale responses; therefore, through focused coordination, leveraging, capabilities development, and applications, OceanPredict seeks to improve ocean assessment and prediction services providing the broader temporal and spatial context for assessing ocean influences (physical and biogeochemical etc) to guide global and regional assessment and response.

Essential Infrastructure

6. Enhance multi-hazard early warning services for all geophysical, ecological, biological, weather, climate and anthropogenic related ocean and coastal hazards, and mainstream community preparedness and resilience.
   • Leveraging national and international collaborations and partnerships, OceanPredict.US aims to coalesce global and basin-scale ocean assessment and prediction development into operational implementations supporting nested regional activities, such as ICOFS Ocean-Shot efforts, addressing the breadth of ocean-related use-cases and impacts, thereby enhancing the Nation’s safety, resilience, and health.

7. Ensure a sustainable ocean observing system across all ocean basins that delivers accessible, timely, and actionable data and information to all users
   • OceanPredict.US targets development, implementation, and exploitation of a global and national operational ocean observing system, specifically including integration with regional observing efforts, such as the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (U.S. IOOS) Regional Associations, to provide the critical foundation for ocean assessments, prediction, and informed decision-making. 

8. Through multi-stakeholder collaboration, develop a comprehensive digital representation of the ocean, including a dynamic ocean map, which provides free and open access for exploring, discovering, and visualizing past, current, and future ocean conditions in a manner relevant to diverse stakeholders.
   • As part of the value chain, from observation through informed decision-making and societal benefit, OceanPredict.US aims to contribute to and extract value from an readily accessible comprehensive digital ocean supporting the spectrum of blue economy, sustainability, resilience, safety, and societal needs with focused fit-for-purpose products and services, leveraging global developmental and operational ocean observing, analysis, and prediction capabilities and addressing the global domain.

Foundational

9. Ensure comprehensive capacity development and equitable access to data, information, knowledge and technology across all aspects of ocean science and for all stakeholders.
   • By encompassing the full extent of the ocean observation value chain and end-use, OceanPredict.US addresses comprehensive capacity development at all levels, especially development of the operational practitioners workforce and related and foundational activities.  OceanPredict.US promotes and realizes equitable access to the ocean data, information, knowledge, and technology through developing, implementing, and disseminating operational open-access products and services, as well as leveraging the efforts of the international OceanPredict collaboration and connections with entities, such as GOOS, WMO, IOC, Argo, UNEP, GEO, and GEO BluePlanet, thereby supporting the spectrum of end-uses.

10. Ensure that the multiple values and services of the ocean for human wellbeing, culture, and sustainable development are widely understood, and identify and overcome barriers to behavior change required for a step change in humanity’s relationship with the ocean.
    • OceanPredict.US will contribute to the international OceanPredict collaboration and associated proposed UN Decade of Ocean Sciences and Sustainable Development “ForeSea” and “CoastPredict” programmes, including sustainable capacity development and societal wellbeing efforts, engaging with and contributing to existing connection, such as GOOS, WMO, IOC, Argo, GEO, and GEO BluePlanet.  The outputs and outcomes enabled by this effort underpin U.N. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 “Life Below Water,” amongst other SDGs. 

UN Ocean Decade Outcomes

• A clean ocean where sources of pollution are identified and reduced, or removed.
• A healthy and resilient ocean where marine ecosystems are understood, protected, restored and managed.
• A productive ocean supporting sustainable food supply and a sustainable ocean economy.
• A predicted ocean where society understands and can respond to changing ocean conditions.
• A safe ocean where life and livelihoods are protected from ocean-related hazards.
• An accessible ocean with open and equitable access to data, information and technology and innovation.
• An inspiring and engaging ocean where society understands and values the ocean in relation to human wellbeing and sustainable development.

UN Ocean Decade Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

• Knowledge and solutions for a sustainable ocean economy
• Knowledge and solutions for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
• Knowledge and innovation for multi-hazard early warning systems
• Formal and informal education on the importance of the ocean for sustainable development
• Increased gender equity in ocean science
• Knowledge and solutions for low-impact ocean energy
• Knowledge and solutions for a sustainable ocean economy
• Increased access to data, information, capacities and technologies
• Knowledge and solutions for community resilience
• Increased understanding of ocean-climate nexus
• Knowledge and solutions for community resilience
• Capacity development and transfer of marine technology
• Knowledge and solutions for conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

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