SEDNA

The Arctic is an extremely harsh environment. However, due to climate change, it is rapidly transforming into a navigable ocean.

Only four ships navigated the Northern Sea Route (NSR) off Russia's northern coast in 2010, increasing to 46 in 2012. By 2013, the number of ships reached 71, carrying 1.35 million tonnes of cargo, with this increasing trend set to continue. The potential for the northern shipping route is huge: in 2013 a total of 13,706,000 TEUs (approximately 1,700 ship voyages) were shipped between Asia and northern Europe using traditional routes. Substantial savings in voyage times and fuel consumption can be made using Arctic routes: 22 days from China to Europe, compared to 35 days via Singapore and the Suez Canal and 46 days around South.

SEDNA's main objective is to ensure safe Arctic navigation and enable European maritime transport to fully embrace the Arctic's significant and growing shipping opportunities while safeguarding its natural environment.

Decision Support Big Data

IT Innovation lead the work on the development and deployment of a Big Data knowledge base and services for mining and high level fusion.

A key focus of our work is on developing an Integrated Safe Arctic Knowledge Base, which will integrate dynamic meteorological and oceanographic data with real time ship monitoring and ice movement predictions to support decision making for safer and more efficient Arctic Voyage Optimisation. By giving full consideration to the growing body of knowledge about future ice coverage, seasonal patterns and predicted maritime activity levels, our work in SEDNA will help ensure safer waterborne operations in the polar region.

IT Innovation's technical work in the project is focused on:

• Deployment of a Big Data knowledge base to support risk assessment and safe route planning for ships.
• Implementation of open Big Data services for mining and high level fusion of heterogeneous data sources (e.g., satellite, in-situ, and simulation models) to increase the accuracy of estimation of risk conditions affecting ships safety.