UNESCO SCIENCE SECTOR - MISSION REPORT
1. Name: Hester VIOLA.
2. Division/Unit/Office: SC/IOC/Toulouse.
3. Dates of Mission: 1-4 th December 2009
4. Countries visited: Ferrara, Italy
5. Institutions visited/Personalities met :
6. Purpose of Mission:
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Discuss data sharing for Caspian Sea measurements
7. Main results:
02/12/2009
Presentations about International programmes and initiatives promoting regional cooperation.
G Manzella introduction
Background to the Caspian Sea. Main issues are Hydrodynamics, Pollution, Fisheries, Sea Level,
(complex system as a sea and a drainage system from 130 rivers.)
S Khalilov – Azerbaijan.
Focus on marine meteorology and operational oceanography. Though there are many other issues in the region. Hydrometeorology is also to be considered as the drainage system has large impacts on the area (pollution esp). 20 million people on the coast, 7000 kms. Large fluctuations in the water level.
Impacting river estuaries and coastline. Gone up 1m since 1981. After a 50 year low, where the coastline was developed and productive.
~100 Marine/coast observatories (mostly Coastal) half open now. 16 sites open in the ocean (half coastal)
Sea level forecasts to several years ahead are needed. Forecast is for the leve to go down again to
40cm (12 year chart and forecast from Roshydromet)
Seasonal fluctuations (river discharge and evaporation).
Wind waves are a priority (in Azerbaijan METU3 from Turkey used for 3 day forecast ). Kazakhstan uses Danish Model. Russia gives 2 day forecast of sea level fluctuations with model. Iran has its own
IRIMO 1 day forecast of sea level/ wind wave
Alexander Postnov.
National Oceanographic institute within Roshydromet
International activities

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Coordinating committee on Hydromet and pollution monitoring of the Caspian sea
(CASPCOM) o Estab in 1994, started with 5 states. To coordinate activities and cooperate. Guided imlementeation of the Intergov Programme on Hydromet and Pollution monitoring of the Caspian (CASPAS) o Meets annually, 2 year chair position, currently Iran.Met Org. (recently took over from Russia Vice-pres of WMO) o Legal uncertainties in the sea. Status is being reviewed ongoing for 20 years, no agreement reached. o General Catalog on the Caspian Sea Level – is essential to have a published record of measurements. o Measurements are not very accurate at sea level sites existing o Unesco meeting next year???
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Tehran framework convention for protection of Marine Env of the Caspian sea o Pollution is the focus and impacts on ecosystems , plus radioactivity. o Calls for a review of the state of the Caspian every 5 years. o Came into force in 2007, but no instruments for its implementation. o Monitoring cruises to sample in various regions of the sea. Close to pollution hotspots.
Or deeper ocean stations sampling sea floor.
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CEP
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Data and models are shared by bilateral agreements. No one lead
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WMO and access to GTS data. How active are the countries in the WMO activities.
CASPCOM will monitor the data sharing e.g. GTS.
 UNCLOS doesn’t apply as it is a closed sea. But each country has a different position on the status of the sea itself.
Nadia Pinardi
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MOON and Myocean
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Regional cooperation is the first task.
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ECMWF models for forcing is 0.5 and 0.25. T1271 new model 1.8
th of a degree. But best strategy is to use regional atmos models to 3-10kms resolution to get sea breezes etc for coastal applications. Half the models are in the NEMO framework. DBDB1 USGS.
Bathymetry info needs to come from a blend of satellite and in-situ.
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Land service, emergency service, operational ocean service and hydrological service. Possibly will be new European centres in future or perhaps there will be several companies across
Europe charged with implementing the services.
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Caspian region could benefit from Budgets of oil companies related to ecological study.
Atanas Palazov Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
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Black Sea (started in 1991)
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ECOOP coastal shelf obs and forecasts.
National observing programmes and Altimetry
Alexander Postnov.
The Russian national Observing system for the Caspian sea

Federal service on Hydromet and Environment Monitoring (Roshydromet) met and upper air, coastal hydrolog , off-shore pollution monitoring and satellite data interpretation
Russian Aca of Science – research vessel 1-2 expeditions non-routine, mainly biological , and satellite data
Fisheries – ship-borne expeditions Caspian Fisheries Institute. BCG measurements and state of environment.
One ocean upper air station. Several coastal. 1 tide gauge in cs. One open sea site on the eastern island and one on an island on the west, include visual obs of wind waves. Water temperature measurd at both. R/V Tantal (1970)
Visual observations on 7 open sites.
Meteor-3 will be dedicated to oceanographic obs going over India and Antarctica.
Azerbaijan
Need for more information from satellite (scatterometer and altimeter) and more automated and newer technology. NATO sponsored 5 drifters (from Marlin)– large amount of data collected and circulation was useful. Experiments gave rise to change in circulation model. 1-1.5 years. Data available via the internet only.
CNR Italy
No gloss in Caspian or Black Sea. Sea level is of growing concern for all 5 coastal countries.
IN situ sea level is critical for the generation of accurate altimeter derived estimates. With proper standards and metadata or how the measurements are taken. Oil and Gas sector is interested in supporting. Additional insitu measurements are needed to provide a key role to support analysis of various hydromet ocean products.
03/12/2009
National observing programmes
SOOP monitoring system (med) and XBT temp measurement.
EuroGOOS and medGOOS. MFSTEP replaced by MOON and EUCOOP.
Only ships of opp now, no one on board. Gibraltor, LA Spezia and then via the Suez.going to Oz they are non MX01 and on the way back MX01B and MX04 – only launching on the way back. 2008 = 532 and 2009 ~700. Using GSM and BOM putting data on the GTS.
Correction factors being resolved.
In the observing system need to have different in-situ platforms for intercomparison.
Bulgarian National Obs system, Atanas Palazov
No real tides in Black sea – 10cms on average.
Bulgarian Academy of science has 2 wave measurement instruments ADCP
Planning an Argo program 3 years x 2 floats, funding expected. EuroArgo deployment next week.
New systems for waves and currents.
Install 3-5 Moorings in open sea.
Stephen Miller – Preservation and access to data
SIOExplorer Digital Library
Site Survey Data Bank
Rolling Deck to Repository

Stephano Nativi
Spatial Data infrastructures for the Marine community.
Extended SOA has a broker to mediate in harvesting and binding /ordering. New CDM encoded to capture simple information (using a variant on the NetCDF data model).
Paulo Mazzetti
Implementing interoperability for catalogs within Seadatanet.
Scope included CDI and Thredds Interoperability for a common interface to suit needs of INSPIRE.
36 countries,
Thredds/opendap used by some countries for data discovery and access.
CDI Common data index is used by seadatanet for discovery and query specification.
INSPIRE requires Implementing Rules and Technical Guidance on e.g. metadata (TG on 19115, 19119), data specs, network services – discovery (Catalog service for Web CS-W ISO AP),
Data & service sharing and monitoring/reporting.
There is a pan-european need to be INSPIRE compliant, refulated at a national level.
CDI/THREDDS have different metadata interfaces.
To create the common interface, ESSI introduced a mediator to interpret the different systems, harmonizing the queries and results and provides a common INSPIRE interface for discovery and query.(example of ways to catalog/provide data OWS, CDI catalogs, THREDDS Geonetwork, deegree etc). No specific THREDDS data sources right now.
Seadatanet has developed a Definition of an ISO 19139 Profile for CDI?
Alexander Vorontsov, RNODC.
Web based technological solutions implemented in the Russian State System of Informaotin on the
World Ocean (ESIMO). http://data.oceaninfo.ru
ESIMO will allow profiles for different applications, specialised functions or regions. E.g. profile for
Climate, Caspian region, marine safety etc.
Elena Ostrovskaya
Capacity development for operational systems of environmental monitoring.
UNESCO institute for water education (IHE), Delft – for capacity development and training of trasitioning nations in the field of water resources, environment and infastructure. Hydroinformatics
Short courses offered also.online courses e.g. water and climate changes DSS – Telefleur flood warning package.
Need to clarify what capacity is most desirable for the Caspian Sea.
Human resources and organisational capacity are the priority initially - structures, systems and roles.
A Postnov,
Russian Forecasting system and its applications in the Caspian Sea area.
3 day forecasts updated twice a day. 6 hour resolution. Sea ice is a big consideration as it impacts shipping operations and threatens pipelines underwater (short range forecast by AARI). Satellite used successfully for ice cover. Regional forecasting is at Rostov-na-Donu for Northern Caspian (and
Black) sea. Wave information is available for Oil Platforms (mean and maximum).
Gaps in the national forecasting system:

Lack of regional operation met products with res higher than 20km to provide forcing for operation oceanographic models for the Caspian Sea (i.e to 1km res for ocean).
Lack of well trained personnel in the regional and local hydromet centres for running localised ocean models
Lack of Oceanographic observational facilities to provide on-line data flow for assimilation in the operational models.
S Khalilov – Azerbaijan Weather forecasting systems
Resolution of wind and wave height model is about 40km. From Israel. Also using NWP METU3 from Turkish Met Service. A great deal of influence from the Caucasian mountains (the topography of the mountains is not well modelled in global models).
For better quality need to have the land surface model to 2km around Baku and the ocean to around
1km. Will develop a regional atmospheric model (with COSMO). Intensive transportation across the sea from Baku. Shipping forecast is provided to the shipping companies. Also a ferry from Baku to
Turkmenistan (as part of the Silk Road).
There are bi-lateral agreements to share data.
All data from Turk/kazahk the data goes to Moscow first and then back to Baku.
Kazahkstan exchanges hydrological data from the coast in exchange for forecasts of the coastal area from Azerbaijan.
Each month the hydromet data is passed to Russia. In spring, Russia provides a prediction of the sealevel for the coming year.
GTS also connects via Ankara (satellite connection)
Planning to develop a regional communications network to increase speed of data sharing and comms.
G Kortchev Bulgarian Forecasting
NWP: Using ARPEGE NWP. Have a model called ALADIN for the region.
Waves: Using WAM /WAVEWATCH III. Adapting the SWAN model for a regional wave model.
(still using an old model adapted from a French model many years ago, VAGBUL)
Wind forcing: wind waves are forecasted on the Turkish coastline.
Upgrades to computer systems underway.
INsitu observations are sparse.
Storm Surge: storm storm surges are usual in the Winter on the Western coast. Amplitude is 50-60cm.
Using the operational model from MF adapted. Motivated by the oil companies, but not so useful for the bulk of users.
Oil spill drift forecasts : MOTHY from france, will be adapted for the black sea and bay of burgas.
The new project Burgas – Alexandropoulos (Bulgaria, Russia, Greece) will increase the tanker traffic
(oil) dramatically. Oil coming from Caspian area and Ukraine, Russia, Romania and inland via pipeline.
Tankers between Novorossisk and Burgas (tankers could be equipped with sensors).
Marine meteorology is the focus, oceanography is not well modelled. No high res currents or data on upwelling.
H Viola. WIGOS/WIS
Question about how to manage instrument metadata and work with platform operators to share metadata. Explanation of role of JCOMMOPS is sourcing metadata and information systems such as
Pub47 and ODAS etc.
Question from G Manzella about the international mechanism in place to support the data system and the services built on top of the data in non-real time for Oceanography on the international level (like the WIS is for Met). Explanation that the IODE would provide this support and the ODP would be a repository for ocean data.

Massimo Busuoli, ENEA liason office to the EU, Brussels,
Collaboration among Caspian countries and the EU
Cooperation Facilitators
Mostly research money, concept of excellence is difficult to demonstrate.
Summary:
A draft report on the discussions and outcomes of the meeting was then presented by G Manzella and discussed. A priority list of issues of major environmental concern were given as follows:
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Changes in the basins hydrological cycle (run-off and underground)
Storms and floods
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Long term Sea level fluctuations
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Fate and dispersion of oil and other pollutants
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Coastal erosion
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Movement of nutrients
Ecosystem changes and long term trends in marine life
Fishery activities and aquaculture (protection and threats to biodiversity in protected areas)
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Impacts of sea ice on coasts and infrastructures.
This report draft will be available mid December on the workshop website http://moon.santateresa.enea.it/NATO_ARW/index.html