Dives Into a Sea of Data, From Plankton to Pollution

Researchers are increasingly using AI to interpret ocean and river monitoring data—helping spot changes faster than manual methods can. Jean-Olivier Irisson, a scientist at Sorbonne Université in Paris, studies plankton and says his team’s datasets include 2.2 million images of individual organisms, which is not feasible to classify manually. He describes how AI accelerates identification using existing image-capture and processing software, enabling new research possibilities. The article also covers iMagine, an EU-funded project running from 2022 to 2025 across 11 European countries, which developed AI tools to analyze large volumes of aquatic sensor and image data. iMagine was coordinated by Gergely Sipos of the EGI Foundation.