FOCCUS key mission: Improving monitoring and forecasting of coastal regions

The main goal of FOCCUS is to improve and advance the coastal dimension of Copernicus Marine Service and demonstrate a convincing leverage and coupling of Copernicus Marine and Member States Coastal Systems for advancing knowledge about the coastal environment and associated applications.

This will be implemented through co-design and co-production between Member States services and a reinforced Copernicus Marine Service.

Advanced and seamless coastal monitoring and forecasting systems will be developed in a joint effort based on novel approaches to better constrain the coastal applications and models developed at the national and local levels, including harmonisation, standardisation, use of improved high-resolution in situ and remote sensing data, and river inputs.

Improving the understanding of coastal regions towards a more sustainable future.

To achieve its main mission, FOCCUS has set out five ambitious objectives

Objective 1 : Better coastal observations

“Improve pan-European innovative coastal observations in response to society and EU policy needs”

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Improving the retrieval of Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) in EU coastal regions

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Improving Remote sensing coastal observation with focus on Physical (PHYS) and Biogeochemical(BGC) parameters.

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Creating new coastal products by data fusion of in-situ and remotely sensed data.

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The application of AI technologies for improving data quality and observations.

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Enhance in situ and remote sensing coastal observations to improve models thorough data assimilation and model validation.

Objective 2: Better land-coast-open ocean interfaces

“Improve land-coast-open ocean interfaces.”

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Build on the existing pan-European hydrological models and will develop pan-European set up and calibration of nitrogen and phosphorus, particulate and dissolved organic and mineral matter transport modules to provide river discharge inputs for ocean models.

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Further develop an Estuary Box Model (EBM3), incorporating novel AI techniques to exploit the use in estuaries in order to optimize the estimation of EOVs.

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Establish Land Ocean Interfaces (LOI) with inland-estuary modelling, assessing impacts and sensitivity testing on PHYS and BGC variables.

Objective 3 : Better connecting Copernicus models and national systems

“To enhance and/or establish the connection of Member State Coastal Systems to the existing Copernicus Marine Service systems in order to improve the open ocean connection to these systems and enhance the quality and efficiency of Copernicus Marine Service.”

FOCCUS will strengthen the capacity of Copernicus Marine Service to support Copernicus Marine Service’s by enhancing their coherency and by upgrading its systems for improved coupling and downscaling. Furthermore :

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Processing chains will be set up and tested to exploit new coastal ocean observations and new and improved algorithms.

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Connections of a selection of Copernicus Marine Service to the existing Copernicus Marine Service systems will be set up through model nesting.

Objective 4 : Better co-designed applications

“Demonstrate the usefulness of the advancement of the observing and modelling systems through the design of co-produced applications in support of Member States requirements.”

FOCCUS will implement efficient product chains to facilitate an advanced and seamless monitoring and forecasting of the ocean from the Copernicus Marine System global/regional systems to Member State Coastal Systems through pilot demonstrations of new products and improved co-produced (by Copernicus Marine System and Member States) services. In particular, to demonstrate the added value for :

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Protection of the coastal zone.

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Development of sustainable blue economy (e.g. coastal and offshore applications).

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Building coastal zone resilience to climate change, anthropogenic pressures and natural hazards.

Objective 5 : Maximising project uptakes

“Maximising the uptake and impact through an effective campaign of communication, dissemination, exploitation and engagement activities and preparing the long-term exploitation of the project.”

To maximise FOCCUS impacts, communication, dissemination and engagement activities will be carried out for targeted audiences to raise awareness, foster dialogue, enable co-production and increase up take and exploitation of project outcomes and results.

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Project results will be communicated via the public-facing website, social media, a project brochure and video, newsletters, scientific papers, presentations and demonstrations in key conferences

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An inventory will map existing Member State Coastal Systems and their level of maturity, characteristics, applications and needs.

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Development of a strategic roadmap for the long-term integration of FOCCUS in the Copernicus Marine Service

FOCCUS objectives have been selected to specifically innovate and evolve Copernicus Marine Service coastal products where limitations have been identified, or where services have not yet been sufficiently matured.

These include those near coastal borders and areas with high socioeconomic pressures. Neither the Copernicus Marine Service numerical models nor the Remote Sensing (R/S) retrievals offer a sufficient level of resolution / accuracy / reliability for these complex domains, which are characterised by small spatio-temporal scales. Physical and Biogeochemical processes specific to the coastal zones fringe are seldom adequately reproduced (if included at all) by the shelf-scale models, leading to an inaccurate description of this zone.

More complete forecasting and analysis is increasingly demanded by coastal users to solve a variety of problems (e.g. conflicting tourism and port operation, water quality for aquaculture and bathing, etc.).

Achieving more fit-for-use solutions in this area would be of direct benefit for the coastal economy, including a reduction of uncertainty resulting in more efficient, cost-effective operations. In turn, the project will add value since it will enhance the coastal value of Copernicus Marine Service products with limited additional investments, making use of existing tools and data.

Our innovative vision

The ambitious vision of FOCCUS is to elevate the coastal dimension of Copernicus Marine System, enabling seamless monitoring and forecasting of the ocean across global, regional, and coastal scales. This entails the application and enhancement of state-of-the-art methods, alongside the development of novel coastal products and collaborative capacity with Member State Coastal Systems. The aim is to establish an operational, fit-for-use coastal information service for Europe. This ambition is structured around three foundational pillars to drive forward this innovative vision.

Pillar 1

To support the exploitation of next generation coastal INS and R/S data and link to hydrology

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Improved through close collaboration between the CMEMS R/S and EMODnet INS, to validate R/S data and inform Copernicus Marine Service modelling, prediction and forecasting activities using INS data.

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New and Future Sentinel missions will lead to improvedmonitoring.

Pillar 2

To leverage the development and demonstration of the first seamless end-to-end pan-European operational coastal models co-produced by CMEMS and MCS using newtechnologies, digital innovations and facilities.

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Aims at developing future fully integrated coastal observing and modelling-systems in support of FOCCUS applications (e.g., marine hazards, off shore operations, fishery and aquaculture, pollution) and EU policies (e.g., MSFD, WFP, MSP, CFP, GreenDeal)

Pillar 3

To set the foundation of fully integrated Copernicus and MS coastal systems.

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Improving services in the regional and coastal ocean is a joint responsibility of CMEMS and MSCS developers and operators.

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New challenges are associated with the :

New R&I needed to support coastal operational oceanography and high-level product development
Implementations in the field of different sectoral policies (e.g., energy extraction, fisheries, offshore operations, industrial port areas)
Efficient dissemination to and communication with stakeholders and users at different levels.
Proof of concept for MS coastal ocean and Copernicus coastal co-produced applications.