When Ocean Researcher V (ORV) set out on its maiden voyage in February 2013, the vessel may just have become one of the world’s first app-connected research vessels. ORV is owned by the Cabinet-level National Science Council (NSC) and operated by the Taiwan Ocean Research Institute (TORI), and those interested in marine science can learn about the ship’s journeys and operations via a tablet and smartphone app called TORI OR5. “The app offers real-time information about our vessel’s position and video of our members working on the decks. It also gives access to a logbook recording ORV’s daily operations and an introduction to the ship’s configuration, functions and objectives,” says Gong Gwo-ching (龔國慶), director of TORI. “We hope this information will acquaint students with onboard facilities and research activities. Our goal is to give members of the public an understanding of our scientific work and Taiwan’s capabilities in marine technology.”
TORI and three universities—along with their respective ships—are at the vanguard of Taiwan’s marine research endeavors. In addition to ORV, the country’s fleet comprises Ocean Researcher I (ORI), which is operated by National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei; Ocean Researcher II (ORII) operated by National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) in Keelung on the northeast coast; and Ocean Researcher III operated by National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. Taken as a whole, the efforts of TORI, the universities and their ships have opened up new opportunities for marine science and technology research in Taiwan and enhanced the country’s oceanographic cooperation with the international community.
ORV measures 72.6 meters long, weighs 2,700 tons and can carry a complement of 18 crew members and 30 researchers and technicians on voyages of up to 13,000 nautical miles or 50 days. The ship was built by the Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Group in Kaohsiung and includes three science labs, a multi-beam echo sounder, multiple plankton samplers, a seafloor mapping sonar system and a seismic event tracking system. The research vessel is also equipped with remotely operated vehicles that can dive 3,000 meters below the surface. The remote devices allow scientists to take samples of deep seawater and sediment, as well as conduct research on coral and seafloor gas hydrates.
Besides serving local universities and enterprises, Gong says his institute has been working closely with government agencies such as the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of National Defense and NSC on marine environmental impact assessments, ocean energy development projects and mapping the Republic of China’s (ROC) territorial waters.
ORV does not necessarily perform all of its work at the behest of the government or marine researchers, nor does the inspiration for all of its missions come from Taiwan, as teachers, organizations, students and scientists from around the world are welcome to file applications with the NSC for conducting research on the ship, Gong says.
TORI was set up in Kaohsiung in 2008 under the independent, nonprofit National Applied Research Laboratories in Taipei and receives funding from the NSC. Gong says his institute’s main missions are building oceanographic databases, cultivating talent in the field of marine science and technology, establishing a research and development (R&D) platform to facilitate cooperation and resource sharing, managing Taiwan’s national ocean research fleet and promoting and supporting academic research.
ORV crew members prepare and deploy marine research devices. (Photo courtesy of Taiwan Ocean Research Institute)
The TORI director says that the oceans are affected by climate change and in turn affect the climate. One of the institute’s main research areas is thus evaluating the likely impacts of climate change on the ocean and on Taiwan’s national security. Such impacts include the acidification of seawater, increased storm intensity and frequency, low seawater oxygen levels, rising sea levels and warming temperatures.
Accordingly, TORI set up 15 high-frequency radar stations along Taiwan’s coastline to monitor the real-time status of surface currents within 120 kilometers of the coast. In the South China Sea, the institute has also deployed a set of moored data buoys that are equipped with sensors that measure the water’s acidity, carbon dioxide levels, temperature and turbidity, while sediment traps below the surface are used to measure the amount of particulate matter in the water. The information collected by the data buoys, Gong explains, is used in oceanographic research, warning systems for natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons and search-and-rescue efforts.
In the near future, TORI plans to extend its sensor network by deploying as many as 50 ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) that are capable of detecting seismic and acoustic signals in the waters off Taiwan. The OBS devices will be used for investigating seafloor geological conditions and monitoring hazards such as earthquakes and submarine landslides.
Untapped Resource
Energy exploration is another research focus for TORI, particularly the area of gas hydrates, which are considered by scientists around the world to be one of the best untapped resources for clean energy, Gong says. Gas hydrates are essentially methane that has been trapped in the seabed by high pressure and low temperature. The preliminary findings of a 2004–2008 MOEA-initiated study identified the seafloor southwest of Taiwan as a potentially rich source of hydrates.
The NSC’s National Science and Technology Program for Energy established a gas hydrate master project that began in 2012 and is expected to run through 2015. That effort is aimed at identifying specific areas of the seabed that are rich in the hydrates and conducting exploratory drilling to assess their prevalence. So far, Taiwan’s gas hydrate explorations have been conducted in cooperation with international partners, as domestic development of the systems and technologies needed for the task is still incomplete. In these efforts, government agencies, local universities and organizations such as Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s foremost research institution, have worked with scientists and equipment from Japan, Germany and the United States.
Looking ahead, Gong believes the waters surrounding Taiwan are likely to continue producing adequate amounts of fish, energy and minerals. He adds, however, that studies on the availability and distribution of those resources are still insufficient, while tapping such assets can be technology and investment-intensive. He urges the government to inject more funds into ocean exploration and technology to encourage academics and enterprises to play a bigger role in the field.
A community of soft coral near Green Island off Taiwan’s southeast coast. Some 300 coral species, or about one-third of the world’s total, inhabit Taiwan’s waters. (Photo courtesy of Dai Chang-feng)
Dai Chang-feng (戴昌鳳), director of the Institute of Oceanography at NTU, echoes Gong’s assessment of the bountiful marine resources surrounding Taiwan. “The oceans hold a treasure trove of biological and physical resources like food, water, gas, minerals and oil. There’s also a lot of energy in the form of tides, waves and wind that can be converted into electricity,” he says. “All these marine assets are increasingly important for humans because land resources have largely been utilized and are quickly running out.”
NTU’s Institute of Oceanography was established in 1968 and conducts biological, chemical, geological and physical marine research, as well as operates ORI to assess and monitor the waters surrounding Taiwan. Dai points out that the area is fertile ground for research, as Taiwan’s location near the juncture of the continental Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate makes its vicinity one of the world’s best places for studying boundary currents. Taiwan should use its geographical advantage to promote marine research that promises significant benefits for the international scientific community, he says.
The NTU director’s research focus on coral reef ecology has led to the publication of papers in international journals including Coral Reefs, the official journal of the International Society for Coral Reef Studies, and Marine Biology, which is published by Springer Science+Business Media in Germany.
Coral reefs, Dai says, play a vital role in maintaining biodiversity because they are centers of high primary productivity, a term for the rate at which organisms convert inorganic matter into biomass. Such productivity creates unique ecosystems for fish and other aquatic organisms, and most of the world’s designated marine protected areas (MPA) include coral reefs, he adds. The international trend for the conservation of marine biological resources, the NTU director says, is the establishment of MPAs that impose restrictions on development projects, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and recreational activities.
The waters around Taiwan contain around 300 reef-building coral species, or about one-third of the world’s total. Some local species, however, have suffered damage from unusual climatic patterns and human activities such as fishing. Dai urges the government to follow the international practice of establishing MPAs as the primary tool for coral reef conservation and strictly enforcing related laws.
Apart from teaching and carrying out research and field investigations, Dai says he and other NTU faculty members have actively participated in international conferences and collaborated with scholars from Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States on researching marine ecosystems and the impacts of climate change on them. Dai, for example, attended a meeting on tides and sea level change in the South China Sea in November 2013 in Indonesia, where he presented a report titled Marine Biodiversity Conservation of Dongsha (Pratas) Atoll in the South China Sea.
While marine research is crucial, Dai says governments must take the next step by incorporating that research into policy planning and implementation. To solve the problems of overfishing and pollution in coastal and offshore areas, for example, governments must draft pollution prevention regulations and ecosystem-based management measures, he says.
NTOU students participate in a program for interns aboard Ocean Researcher II in May 2012.(Photo courtesy of Lee Ming-an)
Enforcement Powers
Though a number of MPAs have been designated in Taiwan’s waters by the Fisheries Agency under the Council of Agriculture, they are not widely known among local fishermen, nor are they well managed, Dai says. One problem is that because the Fisheries Agency lacks the law enforcement powers possessed by the ROC Coast Guard Administration under the Executive Yuan, the agency can do little more than encourage fishing boats to avoid MPAs. It is essential for the central government to set up a specialized maritime affairs unit that has enforcement powers and is capable of resource management and planning, he says.
Another academic institution that has long been dedicated to maritime affairs is NTOU, which was founded in 1953 as a college and became a university in 1989. NTOU now has six colleges comprising 15 departments and 12 graduate institutes, and also operates the Center of Excellence for the Oceans, Taiwan Marine Education Center and ORII. Lee Ming-an (李明安), dean of NTOU’s College of Ocean Science and Resources (COSR), says his college has conducted research projects on the effects of global environmental change on ocean biogeochemistry and ecosystems in the seas surrounding Taiwan and in the Northwest Pacific, as well as long-term observations of the Kuroshio Current running along the nation’s east coast.
The COSR dean says his institute has actively participated in international academic exchanges and scientific research collaborations. In November 2013 alone, for example, Lee visited South Korea to attend a Japan–South Korea conference on geographic information systems and flew to Japan for the seventh annual meeting of the Asian Fisheries Acoustics Society.
Chen Min-te (陳明德), director of the college’s Institute of Applied Geosciences, says the research COSR has conducted on fishery resources and ecosystem changes in the East China Sea over the past 20 years has become an important data resource for international fisheries organizations and marine scientists. The director has also joined scientists taking part in the International Marine Global Change Study, which seeks to understand the mechanisms and consequences of climatic change through analysis of seafloor sediments and rocks.
Studying core samples extracted from deep sea sediments is one of the best ways to understand interactions between the climate and oceans, Chen says. His institute runs a marine core repository and laboratory and his team will participate in the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) by conducting drilling operations in the Okinawa Trough off Japan in the near future. Scientists from the IODP’s 26 supporting nations endeavor to gain an understanding of the Earth’s history and dynamics through means such as core sample drilling.
As for the overall health of the waters surrounding Taiwan, Chiang Kuo-ping (蔣國平), director of COSR’s Institute of Marine Environmental Chemistry and Ecology (IMECE), says much of the government’s current effort to control and prevent pollution is focused on the land, while seaborne pollution receives less emphasis. As offshore dumping of industrial and other waste remains a problem, the IMECE director calls for stricter government regulations. Chiang concurs with Dai’s assessment that the government needs to establish and closely manage more MPAs to safeguard fragile habitats and valuable fish stocks.
Meanwhile, Chiang hopes to see more government funding allocated for marine education and scientific research. Improving knowledge of the marine environment is a prerequisite for ensuring that ocean resources are used in a sustainable manner, he says, while such research also provides valuable assistance to policymakers working in areas such as weather forecasting and disaster prevention.
“Taiwan is a maritime country and the ocean can be its hope, an opportunity or a disaster. Only proper management of our ocean resources will allow us to turn crisis into opportunity and prosperity,” the IMECE director says. “We academics and researchers have a pressing obligation to contribute our knowledge to the government’s formulation of marine development strategies. We want to ensure that the outcome is a good one.”
Write to Kelly Her at kher@mofa.gov.tw