GEM-in-a-Box: Going Global with Eutrophication Monitoring
The growth of agriculture, aquaculture, and coastal populations in the past half-century has resulted in massive outflows of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into the ocean. Excessive nutrient enrichment, or eutrophication, can lead to harmful algal blooms and low-oxygen dead zones that can wipe out marine ecosystems.
More than 900 marine zones around the globe are known to suffer from eutrophication. Due to lack of data, however, in many polluted areas the extent of the problem is unknown to researchers and policymakers. These knowledge gaps typically exist in under-resourced developing countries and communities where access to scientific monitoring equipment is limited.
GEM-in-a-Box is a two-year pilot project that aims to help fill these knowledge gaps by providing low-cost monitoring kits—as well as in-person workshop training in how to use them—to researchers in developing nations around the world. GEM stands for Global Eutrophication Monitoring, and the initiative is led by the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Ocean Observation, in partnership with the Tula Foundation, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and the Ocean Foundation.
Lowering the barriers to monitoring and enabling high-quality data generation will enhance regional understanding and allow improved decision-making—helping to reverse the negative effects on the environment and communities.
Beyond local and national monitoring, the GEM-in-a-Box program aims to create a standardized, inter-comparable, global database of eutrophication indicators that can be used to broaden our understanding of eutrophication and its impacts around the world. In the process, the project will help advance United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, along with the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Partners
The pilot program is led by the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Ocean Observation, in partnership with the Hakai Institute, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and The Ocean Foundation.
The Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Ocean Observation is part of several action groups led by the Commonwealth, aimed at improving ocean conservation through developing training resources and providing training courses and workshops. The Action Group on Ocean Observation worked closely with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to develop the GEM-in-a-Box initiative, supported by The Ocean Foundation, who have expertise in procurement and shipping of instrumentation, and were crucial to the success of the GOA-ON-in-a-Box kit, developed to advance ocean-acidification monitoring.
The Tula Foundation was approached to be a partner in the GEM initiative, to provide expertise and training on the instrumentation, and to support the participants with data-management support and mentoring beyond the training workshop. It is anticipated that Tula will remain involved beyond the pilot project, and the team is hopeful that additional funding will be secured to support additional cohorts and purchase more GEM-in-a-Box kits for global distribution.
Workshop participants will each receive a GEM-in-a-Box kit at their home institutions in early 2025, thanks to funding from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Depending on market prices and shipping, the cost of each kit works out to roughly CAD $30,000.
Timeframe
Development of the GEM-in-a-Box project idea began in 2022, with the pilot project spanning 2024-2025.
Context
The GEM program was conceived to address United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14.1.1a. Under this initiative, UN member states have committed to monitoring and reporting on coastal eutrophication to measure progress toward reducing the impacts of coastal pollution.
While many countries and institutes have ongoing monitoring programs, methods used are cost-prohibitive for developing nations with limited resources— and at present there is no internationally agreed-upon methodology, which makes dataset comparisons difficult. GEM was developed to address this need for low-cost instrumentation and standardized methods to expand monitoring to under-resourced states and communities.
The GEM concept builds upon the success of similar programs such as the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON), which has developed low-cost kits for monitoring and assessing the impacts of ocean acidification. Since 2014, GOA-ON has vastly expanded participation from 31 to over 150 countries. The hope is to have similar success with the GEM project. This will entail assessing and fine-tuning the instrumentation and methods across a diversity of environments and developing uniform global standards.
Over the remainder of the pilot, the Hakai Institute will receive feedback from real-world kit deployments and work with partners to adapt and refine the kit as needed for future cohorts. Securing post-pilot funding will allow for additional training workshops at the Quadra Island facility and expansion of the number of participants.
Outcomes
In late September 2024, scientists from Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Solomon Islands gathered at the Tula Foundation’s Quadra Island Ecological Observatory for a training workshop on the GEM-in-a-Box kit. Over five days, participants learned to operate the easy-to-use instruments within the portable kit to measure ocean nutrients as well as other oceanographic indicators required to assess the impacts of eutrophication—dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature, chlorophyll and turbidity.
Participants also learned essential skills needed to maintain the instruments, monitor instrument performance to ensure high-quality data collection, and, finally, to manipulate and upload the data into an open-access repository. The creation of standardized and discoverable data, stored within a publicly accessible database, is essential to the success of the program.
The Hakai Institute played a key role in developing a data-management plan, data repository and standardized data pipelines to ensure that data collected by recipients in their home countries are of high quality, inter-comparable, and freely available. Furthermore, with collaborators, Hakai developed best practices and standard operating procedures (SOPS) from the ground up, providing the foundation for future development of the GEM program.
A collaborative approach was used for the workshop allowing for considerable participant feedback and adaptation based on their input: The knowledge gained will be used to improve future workshops. The Quadra Island Ecological Observatory proved to be an ideal venue for the training workshop, and participants highlighted the strength of Hakai’s logistical, technical, and scientific expertise. Over the remainder of the pilot, Hakai staff will build on the strong relationships forged with participants by providing continued technical support, mentorship, and check-ins via video calls.
