The ocean is one of Earth's greatest life-support systems. It regulates our climate, stores vast amounts of carbon, produces oxygen, and supports extraordinary biodiversity. Hidden beneath its surface are complex food webs that connect microscopic plankton to whales, sharks and seabirds, while helping to keep our planet in balance. Yet these ecosystems are under increasing pressure.
Climate change is already altering ocean temperatures, circulation patterns and marine habitats. At the same time, human activities are expanding further and deeper into the ocean than ever before. Existing pressures such as commercial fishing and shipping are being joined by emerging industries including deep-sea mining, marine genetic resource exploration and the potential development of fisheries targeting species living deeper below the surface and further from the coast.
Although each activity may have individual impacts, we still know surprisingly little about how they interact, how their effects accumulate over time, or how they may alter the natural processes that keep ocean ecosystems healthy.
OceanSOS is bringing together researchers from across Europe and beyond to answer these questions. OceanSOS scientists are investigating some of the world's most productive ocean regions, where powerful ocean currents and swirling features known as mesoscale eddies create hotspots of marine life. These dynamic regions support rich biodiversity while playing an important role in moving carbon and energy through the ocean.
Using research expeditions, autonomous technologies, advanced computer models and collaboration with regional experts, OceanSOS studies how carbon, nutrients and energy move from the ocean surface to the deep seafloor and back again. This natural exchange connects marine ecosystems across thousands of metres of water and helps regulate Earth's climate.
The project also examines how climate change and emerging human activities may disrupt these connections. Rather than studying individual threats in isolation, OceanSOS considers how multiple pressures combine to affect biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the people who depend on healthy oceans.
Understanding these changes is only part of the challenge. OceanSOS is working with policymakers, marine managers and stakeholders to ensure that new scientific knowledge can support practical decisions. By identifying emerging risks before they become major problems, the project aims to provide the evidence needed for precautionary and sustainable ocean management.
Ultimately, OceanSOS is working towards developing regional Safe Operating Spaces for key ocean ecosystems – a scientific framework that helps identify environmental limits using the Planetary Boundaries framework within which ocean ecosystems can continue functioning while supporting biodiversity, climate regulation and human wellbeing.
Through new science, international collaboration and public engagement, OceanSOS seeks to improve our understanding of one of Earth's most important ecosystems and help safeguard the ocean for current and future generations.
By combining ocean-basin modeling, deep-sea exploration, and international policy expertise, OceanSOS establishes scalable frameworks to identify quantitative boundaries for preserving ocean integrity. Ultimately, these seven interconnected workstreams translate robust environmental data into actionable global governance mechanisms and public ocean literacy programs.
Explore the details of our Work Packages below to read more about our specific objectives, methods, and teams.
- WP1 will use an innovative threat intelligence lifecycle approach to aggregate open-source data and regional expert knowledge on emerging anthropogenic threats, profiling food web vulnerabilities over short-, medium-, and long-term timescales to deliver tailored precautionary management guidance.
- WP4 will develop fully coupled surface-to-seafloor trophodynamic food web models (Ecopath with Ecosim) to define quantitative thresholds of ecosystem stability. At the same time, WP4 will analyse the socioeconomic trade-offs of future ocean uses through multi-country public surveys, applying these intergenerational equity baselines to perform monetary cost-benefit and social-cost-of-carbon analyses.
- WP2 will create novel global and regional unstructured-grid ocean models to perform eddy-resolving physical and biogeochemical climate simulations to the year 2100, integrating high-resolution seamount mapping to reveal how mesoscale and sub-mesoscale hydrodynamics drive vertical bentho-pelagic coupling.
- Informed directly by these ecological and economic boundaries, WP5 will downscale the global Planetary Boundaries framework to build fully operational regional Safe Operating Space (SOS) models across three target current systems, engaging regional and international management bodies to implement these safe limits into global treaty frameworks.
- WP3 will use state-of-the-art offshore observation technologies (including sediment traps, in situ cameras, and molecular gut-content analysis) to comprehensively characterise pelagic-to-benthic carbon sinks, deploying Linear Inverse Models (LIMs) to stress-test how emerging threat scenarios impact the efficiency of the biological carbon pump.
- WP6 will implement a comprehensive Open Science data workflow adhering to FAIR and TRUST principles, securely archiving research data in trusted public repositories while developing a web-based "What-If" application for interactive scenario-testing.
- The execution, cruise logistics, and multi-sector interactions of WPs 1–6 will be continuously monitored and coordinated by WP7, which also drives the project's educational legacy through early-career fellowships, floating university curricula, and an immersive digital planetarium show for global public outreach.
- Gather emerging threat intelligence for each OceanSOS region to support regional SOS frameworks.
- Strengthen institutional capacities for adaptive, ecosystem-based management.
- Provide situational awareness to guide area-based management tools (ABMTs) and environmental impact assessments (EIAs) while embedding intra- and intergenerational equity.
Task List:
- Task 1.1. Threat intelligence (TI) compilation and gap analysis of existing regional data on oceanic food webs.
- Task 1.2. Conduct three regional expert workshops on short-, medium-, and long-term threats to the integrity and functioning of the OceanSOS regions.
- Task 1.3. Development of guidance on precautionary management of emerging threats including ABMTs and EIAs for regional, European, and global decision-makers.
Key Outcomes:
- D1.1: Initial Threat Intelligence Report.
- D1.2: Emerging Threats Workshops Summary Reports.
- D1.3: Think Piece on Equity of Emerging Threats.
- D1.4: Guidance and Policy Briefs for Decision-Makers on Precautionary Measures.
- WP Co-leaders: Heriot-Watt University (HWU) & University of Cape Town (UCT).
- Conduct advanced climate change projections to 2100 using the global FESOM2-REcoM3 model to predict physical and biogeochemical variations.
- Improve understanding of fine-scale drivers of bentho-pelagic coupling and carbon flux in the NACES MPA and Agulhas Current System.
- Process seamount geophysical surveys to ground-truth vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs).
Task List:
- Task 2.1. Conduct eddy-resolving climate model simulations.
- Task 2.2. Conduct eddy-resolving BGC model simulations.
- Task 2.3. Modelling fine-scale processes in the NACES MPA and Agulhas Current System.
- Task 2.4. Seamount mapping and habitat characterisation.
Key Outcomes:
- D2.1: Evaluation of Climate Model Simulations.
- D2.2: Future Changes in Ocean Physics and Biogeochemistry.
- D2.3: Interactions Between the Seafloor, Benthopelagic Coupling, Carbon Export, and Fine-Scale Processes.
- WP Co-leaders: Alfred-Wegener-Institut (AWI-CD) & Aarhus Universitet (AU).
- Quantify meso-, bathypelagic, and benthic carbon stocks and flows.
- Determine pelagic and benthic community composition and biomass from in situ observation instruments.
- Create dynamic Linear Inverse Models (LIMs) to test the impacts of climate change and fishing on total carbon sequestration.
Task List:
- Task 3.1. Assessment of sinking pelagic and benthic carbon demand and cycling.
- Task 3.2. Species diversity and biomass from low to high trophic levels.
- Task 3.3. Estimate carbon stocks and flows using LIMs.
Key Outcomes:
- D3.1: Parameter Validation for POC Reactive Transport Models.
- D3.2: Mesopelagic Community Structure (Zooplankton and Micronekton).
- D3.3: Pelagic and Benthic Carbon Demand and Cycling.
- D3.4: Linear Inverse Models of Changes in Carbon.
- WP Co-leaders: Imperial College London (ICL) & Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).
- Streamline common multi-stressor assumptions across the threat scenarios.
- Quantify energy flows from plankton to top predators integrating mesopelagic biomass.
- Quantify climate and fisheries impacts on food web stability limits.
- Evaluate economic impacts alongside public perceptions of generational equity.
Task List:
- Task 4.1. Specifying emerging threat scenarios.
- Task 4.2. Development of a fully integrated surface to seafloor food web model for the NACES MPA.
- Task 4.3. Simulations of trophic impacts and food web stability under existing uses, climate change, and emerging threat scenarios.
- Task 4.4. Distributional equity issues of emerging threat scenarios.
- Task 4.5. Quantify economic impacts of current and emerging threats on climate and tuna and tuna-like fisheries.
Key Outcomes:
- D4.1: Anthropogenic Threat Scenarios.
- D4.2: Ecopath Reference Network.
- D4.3: Survey Results on Fairness and Acceptable Risks of Emerging Threats.
- D4.4: Impacts of Climate Change and Fisheries Threats on the NACES MPA Food Web.
- D4.5: Economic Assessment of Threats and Equity Implications.
- WP Co-leaders: Wageningen University (WU) & Mara Consultants Ltd (Mara).
- Downscale ocean-relevant planetary boundaries to the regional biome scale.
- Translate existing safe boundaries to three separate study regions.
- Collaborate with international competent authorities to co-design decision-making frameworks.
- Disseminate outputs to regional and global frameworks like the BBNJ bodies.
Task List:
- Task 5.1. Baseline study to map stakeholders, existing human activities, and management processes for the three OceanSOS regions.
- Task 5.2. Conceptualise regional SOS frameworks for oceanic food webs.
- Task 5.3. Create an SOS framework for each OceanSOS region.
- Task 5.4. Use the developing SOS framework to inform development of the approach to EIAs, management, and monitoring for ABMT proposals under the BBNJ Agreement.
Key Outcomes:
- D5.1: Competent Authorities Activities and Management.
- D5.2: DPSIR and Competent Authority Meeting Reports.
- D5.3: SOS Framework by Regions.
- D5.4: Report on the Regional SOS Approach.
- WP Co-leaders: OSPAR Commission (OSPAR) & Stockholm Resilience Centre (SU-SRC).
- Plan and implement secure data handling and long-term open archiving following FAIR and INSPIRE standards.
- Contribute data products using target EOV, ECV, and EBV indicators.
- Promote integration with prominent aggregator databases like EMODnet, ODIS, DestinE, and EDITO.
Task List:
- Task 6.1. Data Management Plan.
- Task 6.2. Discovery and compilation of available data and resources relevant for reuse.
- Task 6.3. Data curation, long-term archiving, and publication.
- Task 6.4. Contribution to European and global marine observation and data networks.
Key Outcomes:
- D6.1: Data Management Plan.
- D6.2: Compilation of ECVs, EOVs, and EBVs.
- D6.3: Project Research Outputs and Dissemination.
- WP Co-leaders: Alfred-Wegener-Institut (AWI-P) & South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON).
- Optimise the administrative and communication environments of the consortium.
- Coordinate the offshore cruise schedules.
- Develop concrete exploitation and intellectual property portfolios.
- Manage structural outreach campaigns, including early-career fellowships, SEAmester floating curricula, and a public planetarium production.
Task List:
- Task 7.1. Coordination, progress monitoring, risk management and reporting.
- Task 7.2. Coordination of research cruises.
- Task 7.3. Dissemination, external communication and training.
- Task 7.4. Collaboration with co-funded projects in CL6-2025-02-CLIMATE-02 call.
- Task 7.5. Planetarium show development, production and dissemination.
- Task 7.6. Exploitation planning and management of Intellectual Property.
Key Public Outcomes:
- D7.3: Report on Dissemination of the OceanSOS Planetarium Show. (Note: D7.1, D7.2, and D7.4 are restricted internal management deliverables).
- WP Co-leaders: Mara Consultants Ltd (Mara) & Aarhus Universitet (AU).