Swan Hellenic unveils its 2025 Cruising4Oceans scientific support for EU Mission Ocean

Cultural expedition cruise pioneer Swan Hellenic has announced the intensification of its Citizen Science work under the European Union’s Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters, to which it became the first shipping company signatory in 2023. Last December, it built on this by becoming the first shipping company to supply the EU Mission with data collected on board. As a result, scientists can now access this precious information online through the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet).

EMODnet is the European Commission’s source of trusted in situ marine environment and human activity data, collected from coast to remote open ocean, and surface to deep sea floor. This today includes Citizen Science data of verified quality and reliability from Swan Hellenic’s Cruising4Oceans initiative, which EMODnet began “ingesting” from 4 December 2024.

Swan Hellenic’s expedition cruise ships SH Vega and SH Diana began collecting this data around Svalbard in the Arctic last August, when the Cruising4Oceans initiative was launched. The data ranges from information on metocean conditions to water temperature, salinity and conductivity. The data collected so far in the Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica have proved extremely valuable not just to oceanographers monitoring water temperatures, for example, but also to meteorologists, helping them to improve their weather forecasting models.

“EMODnet is enabling new open science perspectives, and its data are routinely used by world-leading climate and oceanographic institutes.” says Antonio Novellino, coordinator of EMODnet Physics and one of the managers of the EMODnet data exchange. “However, data from certain remote areas are scarce since it is difficult and costly to carry out scientific campaigns there. That’s why our partnership with Swan Hellenic is so important”.

The initiative is one in a series of Citizen Scienceprograms through which Swan Hellenic guests and onboard experts have for several years contributed valuable data to the scientific community. These include reporting cloud data with NASA, recording whale sightings with Happywhale, monitoring phytoplankton with the Secchi Disk Study, and Antarctic seabird numbers with Stony Brook University. The immense potential value of such Citizen Science data has been clearly identified in scientific studies.

Swan Hellenic CEO Andrea Zito comments: “We are honored to be helping this vital EU Mission develop the most appropriate methodology and will be delighted to share it with other operators to ensure a substantial volume of reliable data can be obtained.”

But feeding EMODnet is not the only impact of Cruising4Oceans. Scientists are also using the water samples obtained to calibrate the biosensors used in the AquaBioSens device currently under development with European Commission funding by five leading research and innovation bodies. This exciting hand-held device – ideal for use by swimmers, for instance – will enable water safety tests to be carried out in minutes compared with the current 24 hours.

What’s more, Swan Hellenic is set to expand its Citizen Science activities still further in 2025, and in two ways. Firstly, it will assist expert understanding of climate-driven biodiversity changes by collecting georeferenced pictures of flora and fauna taken by its guests. Of greater potential impact, however, it will also be exploring how to best record and provide vital data on environmental DNA (eDNA).

European Climate Pact Ambassador Mario Dogliani explains: “eDNA is the genetic material left by organisms in the environment, so it can be used to detect the presence of species and assess biodiversity. It has tremendous potential for spotting climate-driven trends earlier and forecasting the migration of species from their original ecosystems. But it needs broad-scale best practices to be effective, which is exactly what Swan Hellenic’s Cruising4Oceans will contribute to achieving”.

The article Swan Hellenic unveils its 2025 Cruising4Oceans scientific support for EU Mission Ocean first appeared in TravelDailyNews International.