Citizens of Surf (CoS)

CIMAR - Portugal

Change humanity’s relationship with the ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, Project, Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity, Understand and beat marine pollution

Citizens of Surf aims to equip surfers with the knowledge, understanding, support and tools to become active and engaged citizen scientists.

35+ million people are known to immerse themselves in breaking waves on a global scale, and Citizens of Surf aims to connect recreational ocean users to ocean science, so they can contribute toward the Ocean Decade and help achieve “The Science We Need for the Ocean We Want”.

This Decade Action focuses on developing and testing the monitoring and data collection methodology to report on environmental indicators within surfing zones, with the three main areas of research, including: climate change indicators, microplastic contamination and biodiversity. This is a truly interdisciplinary and novel project, as not only will we be conducting the sampling in the ocean using surfing citizen scientists, we will also be monitoring the participants levels of Ocean Literacy and engagement.

This Project is hosted by the Ocean Decade Programme Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOPs)

Start Date: 01/03/2023
End Date: 31/12/2029

Contact point: Natalie Fox – natalie@ecopdecade.org