Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is highlighting its role in supporting research into nature-based climate solutions and sustainable aquaculture practices through a collaborative project with Cascadia Seaweed. The two-year partnership focused on environmental monitoring off the west coast of Vancouver Island to understand the relationship between kelp forests and fish biodiversity.
Cascadia Seaweed received $1.8-million through the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund to complete the project and sought ONC's expertise as global leaders in marine observatory operations and data management solutions.
“When seeking support to meet the challenges of understanding the oceanographic conditions in and outside of our kelp farms, which involved gathering and managing thousands of oceanographic data points, ONC was an obvious partner for us,” said Colin Bates, Cascadia Seaweed’s senior research scientist. “Their expertise and experience with sensors, keeping instruments safe in the field, and processing data really set us up for success. Further, open access to Oceans 3.0 ensured that our data were easily publicly available, which was really important to us.”
Data from this AML-6 scientific instrument is available in ONC’s Oceans 3.0 data management portal. Data tells us how ocean conditions differ across kelp-based ecosystems and change over time.
Credit: Adapted from image supplied by Colin Bates, Cascadia Seaweed
An initiative of the University of Victoria, ONC designed the mooring platforms to support the autonomous operation of four Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth (CTD) sensors, including additional sensors to measure variables such as oxygen, turbidity, and chlorophyll. The scientific instruments along with additional video cameras were deployed continuously for 16 months over 2022 and 2023 at two kelp farms, in Ahousaht territory in Clayoquot Sound and Uchucklesaht territory in Barkley Sound, with instruments located both inside and outside the farms for comparative analysis.
While Cascadia Seaweed led the deployment, maintenance, and recovery of the equipment, ONC played a crucial role in processing the retrieved data for archiving in our openly accessible data management portal, Oceans 3.0.
“Our involvement in this project underscores ONC's commitment to supporting environmental monitoring for both science and industry, including initiatives that have the potential to advance nature-based climate solutions and contribute to the blue economy,” said Kate Moran, ONC’s president and CEO. "By ensuring data are collected scientifically and made publicly available, we are contributing to informed decision-making and promoting transparency.”
Additionally, ONC contributed to the deployment strategy for the moorings and platforms, tested and validated the CTDs for integration into Oceans 3.0, and provided data management services during the partnership.
Over the course of the project, ONC also worked with the CTD manufacturer AML Oceanographic Ltd, to establish a new data ingestion process suited to the autonomous set-up of the scientific technology, and worked collaboratively with this Victoria-based company to improve the technology.
ONC received data downloaded from Cascadia during maintenance trips every month and ingested it into Oceans 3.0. This amounted to 94,523 data messages, or 661,661 data readings. Credit: Cascadia Seaweed
ONC's data specialists ensured that the 35 individual digital object identifiers collected from the scientific instruments are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR principles). They also ensured that the data adheres to principles for the ethical use of Indigenous data.
ONC’s involvement in this project is highlighted as part of the 25th International Seaweed Symposium, in Victoria, B.C., May 4-9, 2025, which both organizations helped in planning. The gathering will honour Indigenous Peoples' history with seaweed and pay tribute to seaweed research innovators; it invites global industry professionals, academics, students, and Indigenous peoples to connect and learn about seaweed.
