TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

Underwater innovation: Canadian technology at the forefront

It's being hailed as "the ocean's internet."

The Ocean Tracking Network at Dalhousie University will provide vast details about changing marine conditions and their impact on sea animals and fish. It will open a new window on marine life, using unprecedented technical innovation developed in Canada, much of it in Atlantic Canada. It will improve the world's ability to study, manage and protect three-quarters of the planet, amid the increasing threats from climate change and overfishing.

With investment from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the OTN is developing a global infrastructure to collect comprehensive data on sea animals, in relation to the ocean's changing physical properties. Scientists will tag a wide range of aquatic species — salmon, tuna, whales, sharks, penguins, crab and seals, to name a few — with small electronic transmitters that are surgically implanted or attached externally, and can operate for up to 20 years.

Receivers will be arranged 800 metres apart in "listening curtains" in strategic locations along the sea floor, in 14 ocean regions off all seven continents. Roughly the size of kitchen food processors, these receivers will pick up coded acoustic signals identifying each tagged sea creature that passes within half a kilometre. Tags and receivers can also be outfitted with sophisticated sensors that measure the ocean's temperature, depth, salinity, chemistry and other properties.

While the OTN is revolutionary in its scope and technology, it's building on the work of pilot efforts that have shown great success for the Census of Marine Life, an OTN research partner. Project POST (Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking, postcoml.org), based in British Columbia, has been monitoring wild salmon with acoustic tags since 2004, some 1,750 km along the west coast from Oregon to Alaska. Project TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Pelagics, toppcensus.org) in California has been fitting large ocean animals with archival tags that can be read by satellites, providing key data about their movements and ocean conditions.

Developing the next generation of technology

The OTN will expand these efforts to a global scale. It will integrate existing and future ocean observation projects, pooling their ongoing results in a central database. CFI's investment will also help fund a technology development program to further advance Canada's state-of-the-art marine tracking technology.

Archival and acoustic tags will be combined into one far more versatile device, with improved data retrieval methods. To make this happen, researchers are consulting with ocean monitoring industry leaders, such as Amirix Systems Inc. of Halifax and Lotek Wireless Inc. of Newfoundland.

The advanced data collection systems will provide far more reliable and timely information than traditional vessel-based methods. Take, for example, the "Halifax Line," located 130 kilometres offshore of Halifax. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has profiled this shelf from surface to seabed several times a year for about three decades, using research vessels. An OTN curtain along the Halifax Line will provide samples 2,000 times more frequently, with 10 times more accuracy and consistency.

Over the next few decades, billions of dollars will be spent on ocean monitoring around the world, so the OTN will have tremendous potential for Canada's economy, while enhancing Dalhousie's position as the global leader in marine research. Ultimately, it will lead to a deeper understanding of our oceans and climate change effects, and better-informed approaches to fisheries management and conservation of endangered species.

Innovative technology

A global monitoring system will track the movement and behaviour of diverse marine species — salmon to turtles to whales. The network will establish "listening curtains," comprised of innovative Canadian-made tracking technology, in 14 ocean regions covering the entire planet.

The network´s technological capacity will be provided by private sector companies, like AMIRIX Systems Inc., Lotek Wireless Inc., Satlantic Inc. and Kintama Research Corp. The network will enable the world´s best minds in marine science and management to collaborate among research institutions located in Canada, the United States, Argentina, Bermuda, Spain, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and elsewhere.

The results will provide the most comprehensive data to inform marine management practices ever available and will determine how life-sustaining ocean properties are changing in response to climate change in a way never before possible.