Swan Hellenic Expands Citizen Science Efforts – Cruise Industry News

Swan Hellenic has expanded its Citizen Science program under the European Union’s Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters,” becoming the first shipping company to provide the initiative with onboard-collected data.

Since August 2023, Swan Hellenic’s expedition ships the SH Vega and SH Diana have gathered environmental data through the Cruising4Oceans initiative, covering areas such as Svalbard, Greenland and Antarctica. This data, tracking ocean conditions like temperature, salinity and conductivity, is now accessible via the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet), the EU’s official marine data platform.

Scientists and meteorologists are using this information to enhance ocean monitoring and improve weather forecasting models. Swan Hellenic first joined the EU Mission in 2023 and began supplying data in December 2024.

Swan Hellenic CEO Andrea Zito said: “We are honored to be helping this vital EU Mission develop the most appropriate methodology and will be delighted to share it with other operators to ensure a substantial volume of reliable data can be obtained.”

The initiative is one in a series of Citizen Science programs through which Swan Hellenic guests and onboard experts have contributed data to the scientific community. These include reporting cloud data with NASA, recording whale sightings with Happywhale, monitoring phytoplankton with the Secchi Disk Study and Antarctic seabird numbers with Stony Brook University.

“EMODnet is enabling new open science perspectives, and its data are routinely used by world-leading climate and oceanographic institutes,” said Antonio Novellino, coordinator of EMODnet Physics and one of the managers of the EMODnet data exchange. “However, data from certain remote areas are scarce since it is difficult and costly to carry out scientific campaigns there. That’s why our partnership with Swan Hellenic is so important”.

Cruising4Oceans also supports scientific research by providing water samples to help calibrate biosensors for a new handheld water safety device funded by the European Commission. In 2025, Swan Hellenic will expand its Citizen Science efforts by collecting guest-captured images of biodiversity and exploring ways to record environmental DNA (eDNA) data.

European Climate Pact Ambassador Mario Dogliani said: “eDNA is the genetic material left by organisms in the environment, so it can be used to detect the presence of species and assess biodiversity. It has tremendous potential for spotting climate-driven trends earlier and forecasting the migration of species from their original ecosystems. But it needs broad-scale best practices to be effective, which is exactly what Swan Hellenic’s Cruising4Oceans will contribute to achieving”.