International Seamounts Working Group
Background and rationale
Seamounts are ubiquitous geomorphological features of the ocean floor that influence ocean circulation, primary production, biogeochemical cycling and biodiversity at a range of geographic scales. They enhance vertical connectivity between deep and surface ecosystems, provide feeding grounds for migratory species of significance to fisheries and conservation, and harbour geological, chemical, and biological diversity of societal importance. Yet most seamounts remain unmapped and unstudied, leaving critical gaps that limit physical and biogeochemical ocean modelling, environmental risk assessments, and evidence-based ocean governance across jurisdictions. Of particular concern has been the impact on seamounts of bottom trawl fisheries, which serially deplete target fish stocks and bycatch species and have severely damaged vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) such as cold-water coral reefs.
As a result of their mainly positive (climate regulation, habitat provision, fisheries, marine genetic resources, cultural) and some negative (e.g. geohazards) contributions to society seamounts have great value unrecognised by the public. Their harbouring of VMEs and associated biodiversity, role in marine food webs and ecological connectivity and continuing damage to them by human activities, including fisheries but also pollution and climate change, mean that seamounts have a high significance in terms of ocean policy and management. They are already the focus of area-based management tools including marine protected areas both in national waters and areas beyond national jurisdiction and are a focus for developing proposals for spatial conservation measures under the newly ratified Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement.
This microgrant will enable an international Working Group to co-design a global, multidisciplinary seamount science program aligned with the UN Ocean Decade in collaboration with non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations. The program will unite the global seamount science community in a common mission and deliver a standardized, interoperable platform for the multidisciplinary research necessary to transform our understanding and governance of seamount ecosystems worldwide.
Global Context
It is estimated there are nearly 40,000 seamounts (elevation >1,000m) distributed across the global ocean, along with an order of magnitude more smaller features (knolls and hills). Seamounts cover more than 17 million km2 representing an important global biome, equivalent in area to tropical dry forests. It has been long understood that seamounts influence the flow of surface and deep-ocean currents (e.g. Kuroshio Current) but their role in mixing and generation of upwelling has just been recognised, giving rise to the need for observations and modelling to incorporate these effects into conceptual and numerical ocean circulation models. Likewise, dynamic processes around seamounts can give rise to Taylor columns or tidal rectification, locally enhancing primary production or delivering food into deep waters. Alternatively, topographic blockage of diurnal vertically migrating organisms provide prey for seamount-resident and visiting predators. Such processes support diverse benthic communities, including habitat forming species such as corals and sponges, forming habitat for other species.
Seamounts are dynamic and variable over space and time meaning that fragmentary physical, biogeochemical and biological observations prevent resolution of the processes driving seamounts and interaction with wider ocean ecosystems. Transforming understanding requires a multidisciplinary approach directed at systematically gathering observations from diverse regions and institutions to create comparable knowledge about seamounts globally, moving beyond isolated case studies to a mechanistic understanding of the processes they influence and which influence them. Standardisation of observational methods, co-design of new observational technologies, interoperable and accessible data platforms, intercomparison of data, its analyses and modelling will all be critical to this transformation of understanding and translation of this into knowledge-based policy development, decision making and governance of these ecosystems globally. This can only be achieved through a well-designed global seamount programme of science lasting sufficient time to gather the resources to study these often-remote ecosystems.
Relevance to POGO and fit with POGO’s Strategy
The International Seamount Working Group aims to globally provide the observations required for sustainable management and conservation of seamount ecosystems.
Strategic goals include:
- To co-design a program that enables fundamental seamount science and discovery.
- Establish a global network of reference sites for sustained long-term observations.
- To resolve patterns of variation (oceanographic, geological, biogeochemical and biological) and connectivity between seamounts and seamounts and the wider ocean.
- Assess ecosystem vulnerability and resilience to local (e.g. fishing) and global (e.g. climate change) human impacts.
Key deliverables and platforms developed include:
- Standardised protocols based on best practice;
- a technology and innovation hub with an emphasis on low-cost approaches to ocean observations;
- an interoperable global data system taking advantage of existing resources;
- a knowledge exchange and training platform.
The International Seamount Working Group meets many of the priorities and aims of POGO:
It aims to advance observations of seamount ecosystems thus advancing observations of the global ocean. Development of systematic observations on seamount ecosystems globally will advance scientific understanding of how these ecosystems work and how they are connected to other seamounts and the wider ocean.
Seamounts are complex topographically and therefore challenging to study so innovation in ocean observing, especially using low-cost approaches will be a priority.
The programme represents a long-term activity to support observations and capability to study seamount ecosystems.
Capacity development will be a core part of the programme with focus on Early Career Researchers, thus bringing forward the next generation of marine scientists interested in seamounts.
Through the global seamounts programme sharing of experience and best practice will be fostered.
The programme will be focused on applying findings to sustainable management of human activities impacting on seamounts and conserving and restoring them to healthy, productive and biologically diverse ecosystems. The programme is therefore grounded in real-life applications of ocean observations.
Work plan, deliverables and milestones
Purpose and Strategic Rationale
The International Seamount Working Group will develop a decade-long International Seamount Science Programme. The vision of this programme is to bring together an international community of scientists and practitioners to provide the essential scientific foundation for the sustainable management and protection of seamount ecosystems. Co-design by the international community of scientists interested in seamounts is a critical part of the bottom-up, co-production of the programme drawing scientists from developed and developing countries. Core to achieving a community-driven framework for promoting and coordinating seamount science is the development of an internationally endorsed Science Plan. Its scope is to build an integrated, globally coordinated framework that links geology, oceanography, biogeochemistry, ecology, and social sciences to advance standardized, comparable seamount research across ocean basins. The Program will mobilize shared infrastructure, data systems, and training to accelerate discovery, enable synthesis and forecasting, build capacity and provide a stronger evidence base to support responsible stewardship and effective governance.
The Strategic Goals of the Programme will be:
- To co-design a program that enables fundamental seamount science and discovery.
- Establish a global network of reference sites for sustained long-term observations.
- To resolve patterns of variation (oceanographic, geological, biogeochemical and biological) and connectivity between seamounts and seamounts and the wider ocean.
- Assess ecosystem vulnerability and resilience to local (e.g. fishing) and global (e.g. climate change) human impacts.
The Core Team within the International Seamount Working Group has already identified core Science Themes (Geology, Oceanography & Biogeochemistry, Biology and Ecology and Social Sciences) as well as Enabling Themes (Technology, Data Science, Study Sites and Protocols, Communication, Science to Policy and Capacity Building and Sharing). Following successful events at the IUCN Conference, 2025 and Ocean Sciences Meeting, 2026, 12 Theme Leads have come forward to lead the Science and Enabling Themes from China, Colombia, France, Germany, Iceland, Portugal, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the USA and more scientists to work within the Planning Committee across these themes. Overall, we have had >150 expressions of interest in the programme.
The POGO microgrant will enable the Core Team of the International Seamount Working Group to come together for a 3-day workshop at the 9th International Symposium on Deep-Sea Corals. This venue was selected as visa costs and other visa issues make the U.K. untenable as a venue and the current Middle East conflict has prevented us from taking advantage of the offer of a free venue and facilities at the Sharjah Marine Science Research Centre, University of Khorfakkan, UAE. Importantly, it is likely that many scientists with interest in seamounts will attend the 9th Deep-Sea Coral Symposium, including Science and Enabling Theme Leads and theme members. During the organisation of the meeting if Core Team Members can fund their travel and accommodation from other sources, funding will be redirected to participation of Theme Leads and Planning Committee members attending the conference or bringing them in to join the writing workshop. Priority will be given to early career researchers for support.
The main purpose of the Barcelona Workshop will be to write the Science Plan for the International Seamount Science Programme. It is essential that a coherent and well-structured programme plan is written in detail so that it can be submitted to SCOR and the IOC for approval by these international science bodies, a step we see as essential for raising funds and international support for the initiative (prior discussions have been held with SCOR and IOC representatives to understand requirements for approval as a SCOR-Sponsored Project or an IOC-endorsed project/programme).
The Science Plan will form the basis of the future work of The International Seamount Working Group in building the science programme. We view the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Conference in April, 2027 as a key platform from which to launch this science programme with the intention for it to extend beyond the UN Decade programme to 2037. The Science Plan will also be taken to the SCOR Annual Meeting for 2027 and to UNESCO IOC for approval as a project (possibly under the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development in the first instance). We intend the International Seamount Working Group to maintain its activity throughout the Science Programme with acknowledgement of POGO as a Founding Sponsor of the programme throughout its ten year lifespan (and beyond we hope).
| Milestones | Date to be reached | |
| 1 | Organise side event to the 9th International Symposium On Deep-Sea Corals to write the Science Plan for the International Seamount Working Group. | 11/09/2026 |
| 2 | Ensure the WG meeting is communicated via the Organising Committee of the 9th International Symposium On Deep-Sea Corals. | 25/09/2026 |
| 3 | Compile a list of attendees to the meeting. | 30/10/2026 |
| 4 | Finalise Travel, Accommodation and Venue for the meeting; disburse any funds freed up by alternative funding to ECRs or Programme Theme Leads. | 15/10/2026 |
| 5 | Execute the Meeting to write the International Seamount Working Group Science Plan. Full minutes to be produced along with a Meeting Report. | 6 – 8/10/2026 |
| 6 | Completion of the International Seamount Working Group Science Plan; publication on the web. | 18/12/2026 |
| 7 | Implementation of the Science Plan through monthly meetings of the Core Science Team and the Thematic Programme Leads. | 1/12/2026 |
| 8 | Endorsement of the programme by SCOR and IOC | 2027 |
| 9 | Presentation of the programme at the UN Decade Conference, Rio de Janeiro. | April, 2027 |
| 10 | Raise further funding for the implementation of the Science Program. | 2027 |
Status: Active Working group
Year: 2026-2027
Members involved
Working group Participants
Leader
- Prof. Alex David Rogers, NOC, UK
Participants
- Amelia Bridges, University of Khorfakkan, Sharjah Marine Science Research Centre, UAE
- Malcolm Clark, Earth Sciences New Zealand, New Zealand
- Cristina Cedeño-Posso, INVEMAR, Colombia
- Anna Roik, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
- Lars Rüpke, GEOMAR, Germany
- Camila Negrão Signori, Instituto Oceanográfico, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
- Lissette Victorero, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, Finland
- Martin Visbeck, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
- Paula A Zapata-Ramírez, Pontifical Bolivarian University Medellín & King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Colombia/Saudi Arabia