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Backgrounder: Infrastructure projects, ocean and climate change
Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Bamfield
Bamfield by the numbers
• 4,200 clients visit BMSC annually
• 75 research groups and 30 external universities use Bamfield on a continuing basis
• More than 8,000 research user days take place every year
• About 65 scientific papers emanating from Bamfield research are published annually
Key BMSC milestones
• Bamfield began life as a cable station in 1901 as the eastern terminus for the undersea telegraph cable laid across the Pacific seabed to Hawaii.
• BMSC, established in 1972, provides year-round research facilities to scientists and offers courses for undergraduate and graduate students in marine and coastal sciences.
• The University of Victoria is a member of the Western Canadian Universities Marine Sciences Society (WCUMSS) that operates the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre in Bamfield, on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
• The Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre is a shared campus of the Universities of Victoria, British Columbia, Alberta, Calgary, and Simon Fraser University.
• Facilities include 3,000 sq-ft of laboratory space containing an ecophysiology laboratory, a fluid dynamics laboratory and an indoor sea tank as well as classroom buildings and accommodation.
BMSC impact
• BMSC is the only Canadian university-based marine research facility on the Pacific Coast and the only Canadian marine research facility on the open-ocean coast.
• No other marine science centre is located on the coastline between Washington state and Alaska – a distance of more than 1,000 kilometres.
• BMSC has approximately 35 year-round employees.
• BMSC economic activity supports more than 40 additional employees in local businesses and infrastructure, including the Huu-ay-aht First Nation who participate in BMSC educational and scientific activities and operate several businesses in the community.
• BMSC provides world-class research infrastructure for marine and coastal scientists from member universities and from other Canadian and international institutions, offering training for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and technicians in practical aspects of marine and coastal research.
• BMSC also offers in-residence programs in marine biology and general science to schools, colleges, First Nations and other public groups.
• BMSC teaches undergraduate eight months of the year and has a public education program from September to December and February to May.
• Research activities range from biochemistry of fish digestion to study of rockfish populations that are predominant around this area of Vancouver Island.
UVic ocean and climate hub (Queenswood)
• As part of the university’s strategic long-term plan, UVic acquired the six-hectare Queenswood property, 2474 Arbutus Rd., in 2010 from the Sisters of St. Ann to accommodate future expansion of academic programs and research in a location nearby the Gordon Head campus.
• Built in 1982, the main residence building comprises approximately 30,000 square feet of usable space.
• Converting Queenswood into a research facility will help make Victoria a world-class research and innovation hub for oceans and climate change.
• Ocean Networks Canada will be the first tenant. At any given time, Ocean Networks Canada would have 40 to 100 researchers and graduate students onsite.
• The renovations planned for Queenswood will not increase the building footprint, involve construction of new structures, or increase parking.
• Queenswood requires renovation to achieve current building code requirements, upgrade seismic standards and conversion to proposed research/office use.
• The renovations planned will provide additional space to accommodate other research activity. The university has no current plans for the remainder of the property, beyond occasional storage within a second, unused building.
• UVic Properties has applied to the District of Saanich for “spot” rezoning of the residence building and the necessary permits for seismic upgrading and renovations.
• Renovations are expected to finish by June 2018.
Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) at the University of Victoria
ONC by the numbers
• 850+ km seafloor cables
• 400 instruments containing over 5,000 sensors online 24/7
• 6 ocean observatories
• 50+ instrumented sites
• 9,000 measurement sensors
• 10 high-frequency radars to improve marine safety
• 280 gigabytes of data collected every day
• 500+ terabytes of data archived in over 26 million files, and counting
• $35 million generated annually in economic impact to BC
• 23,000+ science and business registered users from over 200 countries
• 22 BC companies to date partnered with ONC
• $0.00 cost to use the data
Key ONC milestones
• 1990s Dreams of Canadian and US researchers coalesce around the technological potential of internet-connected cabled seafloor observatories.
• 2002 The Canada Foundation for Innovation and BC Knowledge Development Fund provide funding to UVic to pioneer development of seafloor observatories.
• 2006 VENUS, the world’s first advanced, 24/7 seafloor cabled observatory, is installed in Saanich
• Inlet near Victoria. It expands into the Strait of Georgia in 2007.
• 2009 The 800-km NEPTUNE observatory is completed off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
• ONC is designated a federal Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research to accelerate global commercialization of technologies used in ocean observatories.
• 2012 The first-ever Arctic Ocean community observatory is installed in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
• 2014 ONC begins hosting data from the Atlantic for a Fundy Ocean Research Centre project on tidal energy, giving ONC a presence in all three of Canada’s oceans.
• 2016 Smart Ocean Systems™ observing stations are installed at key sites along the BC coast.
ONC impact: selected examples of recent ONC partnerships
Seismic sensor networks Funded by Emergency Management BC, ONC is expanding its seismic sensor network on land and on the seafloor, and is developing a software platform that will deliver an earthquake early warning alert to emergency responders.
Monitoring Strait of Georgia ONC is partnered with BC Ferries to maintain ocean monitoring instruments on three of the fleet’s ships to monitor surface water properties in the Strait of Georgia, Canada’s busiest waterway.
Arctic sea ice changes ONC is leading a project funded by Polar Knowledge Canada to improve our understanding of sea ice processes. The project will improve predictions of ice freeze-up and break-up dates for safe ice travel and shipping.
Hudson Bay observatory ONC is a partner in the new Churchill Marine Observatory, which is installing an environmental monitoring system to investigate technological, ecological and economic issues related to marine transportation, and oil and gas development.
Shipping and marine mammals To better understand and manage the impact of shipping on at–risk marine mammals, ONC, Vancouver Fraser Port and JASCO Applied Sciences deployed a hydrophone listening station for monitoring underwater vessel noise in the Strait of Georgia.
Ocean technology testing At one of ONC’s node sites, AML Oceanographic Ltd. of Sidney, BC, successfully tested a prototype anti-biofouling system to reduce marine growth on ocean instruments.
Salmon abundance ONC teamed up with the Pacific Salmon Foundation to develop the Community Fishers app, which allows citizen scientists to collect and upload oceanographic data to better understand salmon abundance.
Fisheries data management Fisheries and Oceans Canada engaged ONC in a pilot project to organize its Pacific fisheries, marine mammal and ocean data to make data more accessible and user-friendly for stakeholders, researchers and the public.
Community engagement ONC has engaged 57 coastal and Indigenous communities to develop resources and programs for students, citizen scientists, and community leaders, connecting science with traditional knowledge to help communities make informed decisions about their coastlines.
Public education ONC interactive displays, live data portals and exhibits at the Vancouver Aquarium and Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada make coastal and deep-ocean environments in the northeast Pacific accessible to a wide range of audiences.
< Back to ReleaseBamfield by the numbers
• 4,200 clients visit BMSC annually
• 75 research groups and 30 external universities use Bamfield on a continuing basis
• More than 8,000 research user days take place every year
• About 65 scientific papers emanating from Bamfield research are published annually
Key BMSC milestones
• Bamfield began life as a cable station in 1901 as the eastern terminus for the undersea telegraph cable laid across the Pacific seabed to Hawaii.
• BMSC, established in 1972, provides year-round research facilities to scientists and offers courses for undergraduate and graduate students in marine and coastal sciences.
• The University of Victoria is a member of the Western Canadian Universities Marine Sciences Society (WCUMSS) that operates the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre in Bamfield, on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
• The Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre is a shared campus of the Universities of Victoria, British Columbia, Alberta, Calgary, and Simon Fraser University.
• Facilities include 3,000 sq-ft of laboratory space containing an ecophysiology laboratory, a fluid dynamics laboratory and an indoor sea tank as well as classroom buildings and accommodation.
BMSC impact
• BMSC is the only Canadian university-based marine research facility on the Pacific Coast and the only Canadian marine research facility on the open-ocean coast.
• No other marine science centre is located on the coastline between Washington state and Alaska – a distance of more than 1,000 kilometres.
• BMSC has approximately 35 year-round employees.
• BMSC economic activity supports more than 40 additional employees in local businesses and infrastructure, including the Huu-ay-aht First Nation who participate in BMSC educational and scientific activities and operate several businesses in the community.
• BMSC provides world-class research infrastructure for marine and coastal scientists from member universities and from other Canadian and international institutions, offering training for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and technicians in practical aspects of marine and coastal research.
• BMSC also offers in-residence programs in marine biology and general science to schools, colleges, First Nations and other public groups.
• BMSC teaches undergraduate eight months of the year and has a public education program from September to December and February to May.
• Research activities range from biochemistry of fish digestion to study of rockfish populations that are predominant around this area of Vancouver Island.
UVic ocean and climate hub (Queenswood)
• As part of the university’s strategic long-term plan, UVic acquired the six-hectare Queenswood property, 2474 Arbutus Rd., in 2010 from the Sisters of St. Ann to accommodate future expansion of academic programs and research in a location nearby the Gordon Head campus.
• Built in 1982, the main residence building comprises approximately 30,000 square feet of usable space.
• Converting Queenswood into a research facility will help make Victoria a world-class research and innovation hub for oceans and climate change.
• Ocean Networks Canada will be the first tenant. At any given time, Ocean Networks Canada would have 40 to 100 researchers and graduate students onsite.
• The renovations planned for Queenswood will not increase the building footprint, involve construction of new structures, or increase parking.
• Queenswood requires renovation to achieve current building code requirements, upgrade seismic standards and conversion to proposed research/office use.
• The renovations planned will provide additional space to accommodate other research activity. The university has no current plans for the remainder of the property, beyond occasional storage within a second, unused building.
• UVic Properties has applied to the District of Saanich for “spot” rezoning of the residence building and the necessary permits for seismic upgrading and renovations.
• Renovations are expected to finish by June 2018.
Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) at the University of Victoria
ONC by the numbers
• 850+ km seafloor cables
• 400 instruments containing over 5,000 sensors online 24/7
• 6 ocean observatories
• 50+ instrumented sites
• 9,000 measurement sensors
• 10 high-frequency radars to improve marine safety
• 280 gigabytes of data collected every day
• 500+ terabytes of data archived in over 26 million files, and counting
• $35 million generated annually in economic impact to BC
• 23,000+ science and business registered users from over 200 countries
• 22 BC companies to date partnered with ONC
• $0.00 cost to use the data
Key ONC milestones
• 1990s Dreams of Canadian and US researchers coalesce around the technological potential of internet-connected cabled seafloor observatories.
• 2002 The Canada Foundation for Innovation and BC Knowledge Development Fund provide funding to UVic to pioneer development of seafloor observatories.
• 2006 VENUS, the world’s first advanced, 24/7 seafloor cabled observatory, is installed in Saanich
• Inlet near Victoria. It expands into the Strait of Georgia in 2007.
• 2009 The 800-km NEPTUNE observatory is completed off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
• ONC is designated a federal Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research to accelerate global commercialization of technologies used in ocean observatories.
• 2012 The first-ever Arctic Ocean community observatory is installed in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
• 2014 ONC begins hosting data from the Atlantic for a Fundy Ocean Research Centre project on tidal energy, giving ONC a presence in all three of Canada’s oceans.
• 2016 Smart Ocean Systems™ observing stations are installed at key sites along the BC coast.
ONC impact: selected examples of recent ONC partnerships
Seismic sensor networks Funded by Emergency Management BC, ONC is expanding its seismic sensor network on land and on the seafloor, and is developing a software platform that will deliver an earthquake early warning alert to emergency responders.
Monitoring Strait of Georgia ONC is partnered with BC Ferries to maintain ocean monitoring instruments on three of the fleet’s ships to monitor surface water properties in the Strait of Georgia, Canada’s busiest waterway.
Arctic sea ice changes ONC is leading a project funded by Polar Knowledge Canada to improve our understanding of sea ice processes. The project will improve predictions of ice freeze-up and break-up dates for safe ice travel and shipping.
Hudson Bay observatory ONC is a partner in the new Churchill Marine Observatory, which is installing an environmental monitoring system to investigate technological, ecological and economic issues related to marine transportation, and oil and gas development.
Shipping and marine mammals To better understand and manage the impact of shipping on at–risk marine mammals, ONC, Vancouver Fraser Port and JASCO Applied Sciences deployed a hydrophone listening station for monitoring underwater vessel noise in the Strait of Georgia.
Ocean technology testing At one of ONC’s node sites, AML Oceanographic Ltd. of Sidney, BC, successfully tested a prototype anti-biofouling system to reduce marine growth on ocean instruments.
Salmon abundance ONC teamed up with the Pacific Salmon Foundation to develop the Community Fishers app, which allows citizen scientists to collect and upload oceanographic data to better understand salmon abundance.
Fisheries data management Fisheries and Oceans Canada engaged ONC in a pilot project to organize its Pacific fisheries, marine mammal and ocean data to make data more accessible and user-friendly for stakeholders, researchers and the public.
Community engagement ONC has engaged 57 coastal and Indigenous communities to develop resources and programs for students, citizen scientists, and community leaders, connecting science with traditional knowledge to help communities make informed decisions about their coastlines.
Public education ONC interactive displays, live data portals and exhibits at the Vancouver Aquarium and Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada make coastal and deep-ocean environments in the northeast Pacific accessible to a wide range of audiences.
In this story
Keywords: oceans, climate, government, funding, queenswood, research, Ocean Networks Canada
