C-CASCADES will produce a new generation of young scientists trained to span the boundaries between disciplines and with the skill-sets required to address one of the grand research challenges of the 21st century: the role of the carbon cycle in regulating Earth’s climate. Training will be embedded within and guided by the overriding science objective of the programme, to make a breakthrough in understanding the transfer of carbon between land and ocean at planetary scale and the consequences for atmospheric CO2 and climate. This will require cutting-edge research and innovation to permit characterization of the transport, transformation and ultimate fate of carbon in rivers, lakes and coastal waters and their representation in Earth System Models. This will allow a better quantification of the fluxes of greenhouse gases (primarily CO2 and CH4) exchanged with the atmosphere and their impacts on the climate system. The closely related training objective is to engage the next generation of Earth system scientists in an integrated, cutting-edge and highly relevant joint research programme. The research undertaken will capture technological innovation in sensor development; advance mechanistic understanding of the carbon transformations that occur during lateral transfer between land and ocean; embed this understanding in enhanced catchment, regional and global-scale models; and, assess quantitatively carbon transfer fluxes and carbon transformations along the land to ocean aquatic continuum at the global scale, from terrestrial ecosystems to the open ocean via rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The suite of C-CASCADES models will be progressively improved during the course of the project and evaluated against observations. These models will be applied to disentangle human impacts (e.g. land-use, river management, wastewater production, CO2, climate) on the land-to-ocean carbon cycle, for the historical period and future IPCC climate scenarios.

The UNITED (multi-Use platforms and co-locatioN pilots boosting cost-effecTive, and Eco-friendly and sustainable production in marine environments) project provides evidence by means of pilot demonstrators that the development of multi-use platforms or co-location of different activities in a marine and ocean space is a viable approach (economically, socially and environmentally) for European maritime industry and local ecosystems. The main activities centre around 5 pillars defined through the BG-05 call (i.e. Technology, Economy, Legal/Governance/Policy, Society, and Environment). The technological pillar comprises the need for synchronization of multiple operation and maintenance systems, local market stakeholders impact, support in management and planning decisions for new developments, as well as improvements in current design, safety and infrastructure set-ups for multi-use extensions. The economic pillar will investigate insurance issues, profitability/threshold to finance/investment pay off of multi-use developments while also paying consideration to risk/health impact on business, zoning and offshore, and economic sustainability. The Legal/Policy/Governance pillar focuses on the lack of dialogue between public institutions which issue permits; the lack of health and safety regulation and standards for multi-use, zoning and offshore as well as the absence of a framework for legal responsibility in multi-use. The societal pillar includes societal debates and concerns, societal perception of multi-use social preference of multi-use versus single use, societal ownership and acceptance issues, trust issues between sectors, required improvements in professional skills and competences. The environmental pillar includes determining the impacts of the various structure designs and the overall environmental feasibility of the pilot site developments and implementation regimes.

The overarching objective of AtlantOS is to achieve a transition from a loosely-coordinated set of existing ocean observing activities to a sustainable, efficient, and fit-for-purpose Integrated Atlantic Ocean Observing System (IAOOS), by defining requirements and systems design, improving the readiness of observing networks and data systems, and engaging stakeholders around the Atlantic; and leaving a legacy and strengthened contribution to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). AtlantOS will fill existing in-situ observing system gaps and will ensure that data are readily accessible and useable. AtlantOS will demonstrate the utility of integrating in-situ and Earth observing satellite based observations towards informing a wide range of sectors using the Copernicus Marine Monitoring Services and the European Marine Observation and Data Network and connect them with similar activities around the Atlantic. AtlantOS will support activities to share, integrate and standardize in-situ observations, reduce the cost by network optimization and deployment of new technologies, and increase the competitiveness of European industries, and particularly of the small and medium enterprises of the marine sector. AtlantOS will promote innovation, documentation and exploitation of innovative observing systems. All AtlantOS work packages will strengthen the trans-Atlantic collaboration, through close interaction with partner institutions from Canada, United States, and the South Atlantic region. AtlantOS will develop a results-oriented dialogue with key stakeholders communities to enable a meaningful exchange between the products and services that IAOOS can deliver and the demands and needs of the stakeholder communities. Finally, AtlantOS will establish a structured dialogue with funding bodies, including the European Commission, USA, Canada and other countries to ensure sustainability and adequate growth of IAOOS.