The Arctic Whale project, a science and educational initiative that aims to reduce marine plastic pollution, has teamed up with DNV GL to share its visual, marine and research data through the Veracity open industrial data platform.
Hosting the data on the platform will facilitate exchange of datasets, APIs and applications to help participating companies to combine and prepare data for analytics and benchmarking in line with the project’s goals, the companies said.
The Arctic Whale project aims to investigate if the marine plastic problem has become part of the biological lifecycle of marine mammals that live in remote Arctic regions. From the sailing and expedition vessel Barba, the team will use drones to capture whale breath samples for analysis (from the air they expel through their blowholes), and will also take tissue samples from blue whales to check if they contain nanoplastics.
The team will also utilise more traditional research methods, such as micro plastic trawling and mapping of macro pollutants, while also collecting hydrophone recordings to better understand the biology of the species.
“We believe in the power of sharing to solve the problem that is about to strangle our ocean. We are grateful that we can share research findings and other documentation on Veracity’s open platform,” said co-founder of Arctic Whale and Captain onboard the Barba vessel, marine biologist Andreas Heide.
The Arctic Whale expedition will take place between May and July 2019, with the vessel sailing from Stavanger, Norway, to the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands and Iceland. A team of wildlife and underwater photographers and videographers will document the research and the journey, with their footage also to be shared on the Veracity platform.
“We want to bring the ocean plastic problem to the people – and make the research and documentation easily available to all scientists around the world that are interested in tackling this huge problem. Our dedicated and respected team of photographers and videographers will help us achieve this,” said Sandra Ness, co-founder and head of Arctic Whale’s onshore operations.
The research will be conducted in cooperation with the University of Iceland and the University of Oslo.
