A proposed architecture for marine mammal tracking from globally distributed ocean acoustic observatories

The rise of deep-sea observatories across the planet (e.g. NEPTUNE, ESONET/EMSO, MARS, VENUS, DONET) offers an unprecedented opportunity to view ocean acoustic and marine mammal monitoring from a global perspective. It is expected that these observatories will be equipped with hydrophone arrays that will enable real-time acquisition of acoustic data, the amount of which will inevitably accelerate the need for efficient algorithms to reduce the time-bandwidth product to be broadcast over the internet. Though it is expected that the on-going research in acoustic pattern recognition will probably meet the milestone, a major issue remains to make these data computer-usable on a global scale. In order to enhance the potential of marine mammal passive monitoring tools it is therefore necessary that the hosted acoustic monitoring platforms be interoperable, i.e. sensors be discoverable from the internet, data catalogues and sensor metadata be accessible in standard format. Sensor-web enablement (OGC) currently offers an integrated solution through a set of recently approved standards. How these standards may be applicable to the task of interest is discussed and as a result, a global framework and architecture for marine mammal monitoring is presented from the perspective of a globally distributed acoustic monitoring network.