EMSO has the basic scientific objective of long-term monitoring, mainly in real-time, of environmental processes related to the interaction between the geosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including natural hazards. It is composed of several deep-seafloor and water column observatories, deployed at key sites around European waters, from the Arctic to the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, to the Black Sea, thus forming a widely distributed pan-European infrastructure. The Portuguese contribution will be in two areas of the infrastructure, located in Azores and the Gulf of Cadiz. EMSO intends to be the deep water component for COPERNICUS and coordinates its activities with similar ones in Japan (DONET), USA and Canada (NEPTUNO). The pursuit of the EMSO-PT objective involves the generation of scientific data and, consequently, a more effective and efficient management of maritime spaces and their natural resources. The acquisition of the data will be based on the installation of underwater observatories that will acquire a set of biotic and abiotic parameters of the ocean bottom and water column, namely temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, acoustics and currents. Data processing will be done through routines defined under the EMSO-ERIC initiative, which will allow for the simple integration and availability of data acquired by all European partners.
