About This Project

COVID-19 is having widespread impacts on humans and nature. The “Our Ocean in COVID-19” project aims to track these changes in the ocean in real-time through the pandemic and into a new normal. Using the free eOceans mobile app, participants track their ocean usage and log observations of human and animal activity. To improve participant retention, ocean literacy, and data quality we plan to build the world's first global, dynamic, in-app digital field guide for the ocean.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly every part of the globe. Restrictions on human movement have been a key response to slow the outbreak and numerous studies were quick to document the positive and negative effects on nature (1, 2) (e.g., reduced CO2 emissions, species reoccupation). In the ocean, the blue economy has been significantly impacted with tourism and maritime transport greatly decreased on multiple scales. Additionally, some reductions in fishing activity have been noted. However, our understanding of the impacts by COVID on the ocean are limited by policies that restrict marine professionals from monitoring, enforcement and research. To overcome this, collaborative tracking among researchers, organizations, and ocean explorers is needed.

What is the significance of this project?

The data collected in the “Our Ocean in COVID-19” will provide important baselines and temporal patterns for ocean conservation, policy, and innovation as society transitions towards a new normal. Additionally, this project will provide insights for the future of ocean monitoring. We will evaluate and iterate new methods for real-time, at-sea collaborative human use and ecological monitoring. Integration of participatory community science and management through this project could provide added benefits of improved literacy and downstream conservation impacts which can enable early warnings and actions that can lead to community resilience to change.

What are the goals of the project?

The Our Ocean in COVID-19 project started in April 2020 and will continue through 2022. We will examine the spatial distribution of at-sea human and wildlife activity through time by using the eOceans mobile app for data collection and collaboration. Our hypothesis is that COVID-19 policies on human movement will impact ocean uses, wildlife interactions, and anthropogenic impacts on the ocean.This project can only be successful with continued participation and logging from everyday ocean goers. To improve participant retention, ocean literacy, and data quality, the funding from this campaign will go towards designing and implementing an in-app Digital Field Guide. Our goal is to have 100,000 participants logging from 50 different countries.