Long term subsea monitoring of academic research sites and oil and gas industrial sites: Common standards and interoperability?

In the initial phases of multidisciplinary subsea observatories implementation for scientific purpose, the community has been discussing standardization issues without willing to spend too much additional efforts. Among the initiatives, the Network of Excellence ESONET proposed a Label including recommendations and mandatory aspects. New input are brought by EMSO Preparatory Phase and by a renewed version of the AFNOR standard “Marine environment - underwater equipment - Environment tests and recommendations”. As the oil and gas industry finds interests in long term monitoring of sites and subsea installations, the door is open to investigate the common topics. The key issue is to decide on interoperability specifications which may lead to further standardization in areas such as data management, sensor interface and environment testing.