Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project enters collaboration agreement with UK Hydrographic Office

The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) wherein the two parties will work together to advance the industry’s understanding of ocean bathymetry and in support of the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Seabed 2030 is a collaborative project between The Nippon Foundation and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) with the goal of the complete mapping of the world’s oceans by 2030, as well as compiling all bathymetric data into the freely available GEBCO Ocean Map. GEBCO is a joint programme of the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), and is the only organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor.

As part of its official partnership with Seabed 2030, the UKHO will provide bathymetric gridded map products to be used by the project within the GEBCO gridded bathymetric data set. UKHO will also share and promote methods and best practices in technological innovation, infrastructure, and solutions for ocean mapping and bathymetric data management.

The MOU follows the technical cooperation agreement that the UKHO, Seabed 2030, and Teledyne CARIS entered into in June 2021 to advance efforts in producing the definitive map of the seafloor by the year 2030.