In-situ ocean observations are critical to understanding the subsurface ocean on local, regional, and global scales.  Many ocean stakeholders depend on activities that occur primarily in coastal and shelf seas, including commercial fishing, tourism, industry, and recreation. Providing high-quality ocean measurements in these highly-variable regions can inform policy and management decisions, improve ocean forecasts, support our blue economy, enable research, and provide tools for more sustainable commercial fishing.  Existing ocean observing systems provide global subsurface ocean coverage; however, a gap exists in areas shallower than 1000 m.  To address this gap and complement existing ocean observatories, the Moana Project instrumented fishing gear on more than 200 fishing vessels, New Zealand-wide, with fit-for-purpose temperature and depth sensors in partnership with technology partner Zebra-Tech and the commercial fishing sector.  The system is robust and fully automatic, providing over 15 million subsurface, near real-time measurements throughout New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone from June 2020 until the present day.  We demonstrate the feasibility of a lost-cost, scientific-quality sensor and data pathway on a national scale with benefits to the broader ocean community, and discuss strategies, lessons learned, and future opportunities in New Zealand and abroad.

Primary Presenter: Julie Jakoboski, Meteorological Service of New Zealand (julie.jakoboski@metocean.co.nz)

Authors:

João De Souza, Meteorological Service of New Zealand  (j.desouza@metocean.co.nz)

Malene Felsing, Meteorological Service of New Zealand  (malene.felsing@metocean.co.nz)

Naomi Puketapu-Waite, Meteorological Service of New Zealand  (naomi.puketapu-waite@metocean.co.nz)

John Radford, Zebra-Tech, Ltd  (john@zebra-tech.co.nz)

Moninya Roughan, University of New South Wales  (mroughan@unsw.edu.au)