Project Endorsements | International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE)

Project Endorsements

The IQOE Science Committee invites participation of the international scientific community in the project, through seeking endorsement by IQOE of relevant research, monitoring, and modelling activities. The IQOE will provide an international structure for planning and coordination of multinational scientific activities related to sound in the ocean and its effects on marine organisms. In addition, the IQOE will help provide a framework for national and regional projects to (1) coordinate their activities; (2) agree to standards for research, observations, and modelling; and (3) combine data to increase its usefulness. The IQOE has established an endorsement process to help identify relevant national and regional science activities, and to link these activities to international IQOE.

Benefits of involvement in the IQOE

The IQOE will serve as a focal point to bring together a larger number of scientists and engineers to identify priority questions and promising approaches to answering the questions described in the IQOE Science Plan.
The IQOE will provide a mechanism to bring together a critical mass of resources (expertise, equipment, finances) over an extended period to make progress on difficult observational, modelling, and research challenges.
The IQOE will provide the justification and resources for international standardization and intercalibrations for better comparison of the results of observations, modelling, and research worldwide.
The IQOE will demonstrate the importance of ocean acoustics and biological effects to the public, managers, and policymakers.
The IQOE will attract financial resources and staffing to provide critical infrastructural support for meeting planning, communication, development of scientific publications, and capacity building.

Scientists may seek endorsement for activities that have already been approved by national funding agencies or international organizations, or activities that are in the proposal phase. The endorsement of a scientific activity by the IQOE Science Committee is a recognition of the activity's alignment with the mission and objectives of IQOE, of its potential for contributing to an increased understanding of sound in the ocean and its effects on marine organisms, and of its contribution to help manage human impacts on the ocean.

Responsibilities of Endorsed Projects

Endorsed projects will be expected to help achieve the scientific goals of the IQOE, to help develop and follow standards for research and observations, to help develop and follow the IQOE data policy, and to work together with other projects with shared goals.

Endorsed Projects

Status

IQOE is in its 9th year as a 10-year project and continues to implement of its Science Plan (available here). IQOE has successfully coordinated a variety of activities in ocean acoustics and bioacoustics through IQOE working groups on the use of acoustics to assess biodiversity, the importance of acoustic observations in the Arctic Ocean, standards for reporting ocean acoustic and bioacoustic data for IQOE, software for making acoustic observations comparable worldwide, and recommendations for implementation of an Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable for the Global Ocean Observing System. IQOE progress has been documented since June 2018 through IQOE Newsletters and since the beginning of the project through other products. IQOE identified 2020 as the Year of the Quiet Ocean because of evidence that ocean sound decreased because of decreases in human activities in the ocean due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Next Steps

Activities in 2024 will include actions to help implement the Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable Implementation Plan; continuation of new activities on low-cost ocean acoustic observing systems and expansion of the Open Portal to Underwater Sound (OPUS), implementation of the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, sponsorship of the second World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring Day; and meetings of IQOE working groups and Science Committee.