Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps

The eMOLT project is a non-profit collaboration of industry, science, and academics devoted to monitoring of the physical environment of the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, the Southern New England shelf, and the Mid-Atlantic Bight. In a series of phases funded by the Northeast Consortium, Sea Grant, the Integrated Ocean Observing System, the National Science Foundation, the Maine Broadreach Fund, and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, low-cost strategies have been developed to monitor the environment. While the primary variable is bottom temperature, we have recently expanded our monitoring capabilities to include temperature profiles and bottom dissolved oxygen. Working with over 100 commercial fishing captains from Maine to North Carolina, we deploy low-cost environmental loggers on commercial fishing gear. We hope to extend our existing multi-year time series (as well as our monitoring capabilities), continue integration with the Northeast Regional Association for Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS), and contribute to whatever operational systems are developed for our region in the future.

Data collected through the eMOLT program are used by a variety of stakeholder groups including:

1) The fishermen themselves -- fishermen use data collected from their loggers and model outputs informed by these data to make fishing decisions on the water

2) Oceanographic modelers -- realtime data are assimilated into a number of ocean forecast models on a daily basis including Doppio (Rutgers), the Northeast Coastal Ocean Forecast System (UMass Dartmouth), and several National Ocean Service products

3) Fisheries scientists -- eMOLT data have been used in the American Lobster stock assessment and are under consideration for use in other stock assessments such as Black Sea Bass and Longfin Squid. Fisheries managers with Maine Department of Marine Resources, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game also make use of the data.

4) Other researchers -- scientists at research and academic institutions including the University of Maine, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, St. Francis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have also made use of eMOLT data in different types of research ranging from fisheries science to AUV piloting algorithms.

ERDDAP

https://erddap.emolt.net/erddap/info/index.html?page=1&itemsPerPage=1000

Metadata about vessels is only available to vessel captains, owners, or others with a data sharing agreement with the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation