NEPTUNE Canada: Status and Future
Chris Barnes
NEPTUNE Canada, University of Victoria, Victoria,
BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
crbarnes@uvic.ca
www.neptunecanada.ca www.venus.uvic.ca www.oceannetworks.ca
Earth-ocean processes and systems
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Transforming the ocean sciences
NEPTUNE Canada: international collaboration and leadership
• International collaboration:
• With US through NSF/UVic MOU (now OOI/ONC MOU, 2010)
• With US through OOI and IOs (Regional Science Nodes;
Cyberinfrastructure)
• Through MOUs with Ifremer, France (lead institute for ESONET), National
Marine Institute, Ireland (Celtnet), Tongji Univ., China, JAMSTEC, Japan
(DONET), agencies in Taiwan (MACHO), and Spanish observatories
• Leadership position:
• Building on smaller, coastal, specialized observatories (e.g. LEO 15,
VENUS, MARS)
• NEPTUNE Canada is the world’s first regional cabled observatory, being
operational in late 2009; cf. DONET, MACHO, ESONET/EMSO, OOI
- all likely to be operational in 3-7 years
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Principal elements in building a regional
cabled observatory: the last decade
•Vision, articulation, concept
•Science priorities, experiments
•Ownership and liability
•Funding proposals/O&M costs
•Science requirements:
engineering, DMAS
•Engineering: network design,
power and communications, wet
plant, shore station, backhaul
•Permits and Rights of Way
•Route surveys, node sites, GIS
•Operation/Data Centre
•DMAS/Cyber: in-house
development, evolving
technologies,
distributed databases, storage
•Education and outreach
•Special stakeholders: First
Nations, fishers, navies
•Communications: sci/public
communities, media, partners
•Partnerships: institutions,
funders, foundations, internat.
•Socio-economic benefits
•Time, contingency, renewal,
expansion costs
NEPTUNE Canada Funding Awarded to Date
Installation and Operating Funding awarded 2003-2012
Funding Source
Canada Foundation Innovation
BC Knowl. Development Fund
Other Government Agencies
University of Victoria
In-kind support: Industry
In-kind support: partner labs
CFI/NSERC/BCKDF/CANARIE Oper.
Total
$M
39.9
38.5
3.1
2.0
17.0
4.5
38.2
143.2
Locations of scientific interest (RFP 262; 2005)
NEPTUNE STAGES 1 & 2
Regional Scale Nodes, OOI
Acquisition Plan
Stage 1
Wet plant: Alcatel contract $39M, October 2005; 2-yr
RFQ/RFP process
Extensions and Secondary Nodes
Route Surveys: ‘05 and ‘06
Science instruments: Agreements in Q1 ‘06
Shore Station: Port Alberni, purchased Sept ‘04
Backhaul (Shore Station to Victoria; CANARIE)
DMAS and Observatory Control
Internet access
Power and the Internet into the oceans
Nodes
L3 MariPro and Alcatel-Lucent
Networks
seismic
tsunami
chemical
current
visual
Major instrumentation
Tethered Crawler
400m Vertical Profiler
Jacobs Univ., Bremen, Germany
Complex new technology developments
NGK Ocean, Japan
DMAS System: Overall Structure
Benoît Pirenne, Victoria, Sep 29, 2009
Science Research Themes
Plate tectonic processes and earthquake
dynamics
Dynamic processes of fluid fluxes and gas
hydrates in the sea bed
Regional ocean/climate dynamics and effects on
marine biota
Deep-sea ecosystem dynamics
Engineering and computational research
TEMPO-mini: for Endeavour vents
• Designed by Ifremer
(France)
• An instrument module
designed for study of
hydrothermal vent
communities
• Video, temperature,
oxygen, and iron sensors
• Coordinated antifouling
system
All to same scale
Wildlife Computer Mk10 PAT
TOPP + POST =
Popup Archival Transmitting
Satellite Tag - TOPP
Transition to Acoustic Archival Download (AAD) tags for the 21st Century
A POST salmon smolt
VEMCO R-code
Acoustic Tags
V9 - 2y program
V9 - >4 mo life
V7 - >4 mo life
V6 - pre-production
Lotek Geolocating Archival Tags
Hybrid Acoustic/Archival Tags remain small, but increase recapture rate
Jackson et al. Mar. Freshwater Res. 2005
Integrated AAD tags could download a salmon’s entire life history
to POST/OTN curtains on spawning migration without recapture!
NEPTUNE Canada: Governance and Management
• Management structure in applications approved with funding
awards from CFI, BCKDF and NSERC, with external reviews
• ONC established in 2007 with Board of Directors and Executive
Council: overall management of NC, VENUS, ONCCEE
• ONCCEE established by $13.2M CECR award to ONC in 2008
• CFI Governance and Management Review of ONC and NC in
2008-09 by external consultants – (c. 250p. report to CFI; few
issues)
• NC also reports to the UVic VPs Research and Finance and
Administration and through them to the Board of Governors
(reports made at each meeting)
• NC: Executive Committee, Science Advisory Committee,
DMAS Advisory Committee, Cybersecurity Committee; under
review in now moving into operating phase
NEPTUNE Canada: possible future
expansion options – CFI factors
Overall Performance Evaluation and Value-for-Money Audit of the CFI
As part of its Funding Agreement with the Government of Canada, the CFI must
carry out an overall performance evaluation of its activities at least every five
years, as well as a value-for-money audit. This requirement was completed and
submitted to Industry Canada for a March 31, 2010 deadline.
The evaluation of the CFI was conducted by an independent third party (KPMG). It
focused on the achievement of the CFI against its national objectives and
addresses global questions regarding results, design and delivery, and relevance.
The audit of the CFI, also conducted by an independent third party (KPMG),
examined the management practices and processes in place to achieve the CFI
national objectives and whether they are carried out efficiently, effectively and
economically.
The evaluation and audit were supplemented by an independent report by an
International Review Panel (IRP). The IRP was tasked with overseeing a high
quality, credible process that would deliver valuable information for accountability
and management decision-making purposes. As part of its mandate, the IRP was
asked to formulate overall conclusions and recommendations on the performance
of the CFI
NC: Expected requirements for refunding
of operations (2012-)
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a long-term vision extending over the projected operating lives of the observatories, c. 10 yrs
a set of strategies and implementation plan for realizing the vision and maximizing impacts
a credible business plan for the re-funding period (c. 5 yrs)
priorities for choosing where to put effort and funding
describing operational policies including allocation of services, user fees, management of
MOUs/contracts, Intellectual Property Policy, use for development and commercialization
objectives
describing efficient management to manage risks and to keep the facility on track and on budget.
Management could include one or more Science Advisory Boards
human resources operating the facility, HR policies
communications plan
providing a budget justifying the funding request
a set of shorter term (c. 2 yrs) goals and targets to indicate whether the facility is performing as
expected and if and where effort should be re-directed
annual reviews of observatory performance, including any available indicators of impacts on
research, Canadian business, highly qualified people and public policy
science quality verified by international peer review
NEPTUNE Canada: possible future
expansion options – CFI opportunity
Budget 2010 and future CFI competitions
In the recent federal budget, the Government of Canada reiterated its ongoing
commitment to support the CFI’s future activities, including one or more new
competition(s) to be launched by December 2010.
The CFI expects to soon finalize a funding agreement with the Government of
Canada on the allocation of the $600 million from Budget 2009. We remain
committed to making strategic investments in current and new infrastructure that
promotes leading-edge research; fostering partnerships among universities,
colleges and business researchers that encourage private-sector innovation; and
ensuring that world-class research facilities in Canada maintain their global
leadership role.
Our next update will provide more details on CFI programs allocations and the
proposed timelines of future competitions.
NEPTUNE Canada: possible future
expansion options - questions
• How should a Canadian science megaproject evolve and maintain a competitive
leadership position and provide a Return on Investment of public funds?
• What scientific areas were deemed a priority but could not be funded in 2006
($39M requested but only $13M available for experiments/instruments)?
• What new areas of inquiry/technology have emerged since 2006?
• Given the power and bandwidth capacity and installed infrastructure, what new
developments can add scientific impact to this initial investment?
• Given the observatory’s location, footprint and 5-6 nodes, what other ocean
processes can be addressed by additional sensors/robotics?
• Future funding sources include CFI, NSERC, WED, Government Departments,
industry, foundations, etc
• Anticipated new federal program for funding operations of Major Science Initiatives
(MSIs) – hence our current two-year CFI award (2010-12; $19.3M)
NEPTUNE Canada: possible future
expansion options - examples
Possible new developments/instrumentation/experiments for NC expansion (no
order of priority):
• Additional profiler(s) for water column studies (complementing VPS)
• Additional broadband seismometers for plate-wide seismology studies
• Daisy-chained extensions to reach to the Pacific and Explorer plates
• Additional cameras (HD) for improved imagery and outreach activities
• Add the node ($2.7M) to the Middle Valley TRF and add instruments planned
earlier (c.$2-3M), connecting to CORKed boreholes
• Enhanced instrumentation for ocean acidification studies
• Connect coastal acoustic receiver lines from Folger for Ocean Tracking Network
project
• Add gliders, especially for shelf transects
• Add AUVs with node docking capabilities for long-term deployments
• ……Consideration of scientific impact and significance
• ……Consideration of socio-economic benefits
NEPTUNE Canada: policy applications & socio-economic benefits
• Hazard mitigation/Public safety
• Tsunami warning system (Emerg. Preparedness)
• Earthquakes: urban power shutdown systems
• Security and sovereignty; port security
• Non-renewable resources
• Gas hydrates as future energy resource/climate threat
• Sensor networks for offshore drilling platforms
• Renewable resources
• Sustainable fisheries: water mass changes, nutrient fluxes, Ocean
Tracking Network data
• Ocean/climate change
• Regional temperature changes at various depths
• Regional hypoxia
• Ocean acidification
• Impacts of regional ocean/climate change
An invitation to interact
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In participating in the scientific experiments, robotics,
technology developments and commercial opportunities
Free real-time subsea data, imagery, video and HDTV:
wiring the oceans - transformative science
The oceans on-line: short-term events; longer-term
trends; climate change effects; impacts on marine life
Current leadership: coast-to-coast national facility
Contact: neptune@uvic.ca
Visit our updated website: www.neptunecanada.ca
Also visit:
www.venus.uvic.ca
www.oceannetworks.ca
www.onccee.ca