ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1561737
The Use of Emerging Autonomous Technologies for Ocean Monitoring: Insights and Legal Challenges
Provisionally accepted
- 1World Maritime University, Malmö Municipality, Sweden
- 2Atlantic International Research Centre (AIR Centre), Lisbon, Portugal
- 3College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, United States
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The critical role of biological Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) in advancing our understanding of marine ecosystems underscores the need for sophisticated observation tools like Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Maritime Autonomous Vehicles (MAVs). However, the integration of these technologies in Marine Scientific Research (MSR) has surfaced significant legal and policy challenges. This study, informed by insights from forty-six experts across academia, oceanographic institutions, industry, and intergovernmental organizations, identifies six principal legal challenges relevant to the: operation and navigation of AUVs, data collection, security, environmental impact, animal tagging, and intellectual property rights. Effectively addressing these challenges requires a coordinated, multi-stakeholder approach among the scientific community, policymakers, and international bodies. States may promote an initiative to drive progress in ocean observation while laying the groundwork for advancements. To address the operational and regulatory complexities, States may coordinate collaboration through involvement of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for example. Additionally, coordination with frameworks such as the BBNJ Agreement, UNCLOS, the Convention on Biological Diversity's Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (CBD KM-GBF), and regional organizations like the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) would ensure a comprehensive and inclusive approach.
Keywords: marine biodiversity observation, Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Maritime Autonomous Vehicles (MAVs), Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs), Ocean data, Ocean governance, Legal challenges
Received: 16 Jan 2025; Accepted: 24 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pastra, Johansson, Soares and Muller-Karger. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aspasia Pastra, World Maritime University, Malmö Municipality, Sweden
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