Development of North-East Asian regional Global Ocean Observing System (NEAR-GOOS)

As a strategy of the development of Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Inter-Governmental Commission (IOC) initiated the North East Asia Regional NEAR) GOOS as a pilot program of regional ocean observing system to demonstrate its usefulness. The IOC organized a series of meetings to plan and implement the North East Asia Regional Global Ocean Observing System (NEAR-GOOS) since the first meeting held in Beijing August 1994. The major objective of NEAR-GOOS is the real-time exchange of oceanographic data among the participating countries for operational use. Implementation plan of NEAR-GOOS had been prepared by ad hoc group and accodingly NEAR-GOOS Coordinating Committee had been established to facilitate the development of the NEAR-GOOS. The NEAR-GOOS Operation Manual was also prepared to guide the data flow of NEAR-GOOS. The development of NEAR-GOOS at the early stage among the four participating countries such as China, Japan, Korea and Russia was discussed and suggestion for the further development of such regional ocean observing system was introduced.