NEAR-GOOS (North-East Asia Regional - Global Ocean Observing System)

In 1989, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiated the establishment of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). The system is aimed at providing consumers with a variety of oceanographic information in real time, just as the WMO World Weather provides weather information. The GOOS system provides for the establishment of several units:

• Monitoring, evaluation and climate forecast;
• Monitoring and evaluation of the living resources of the ocean;
• Monitoring of the coastal zone and its changes;
• Assess and forecast the "health" of the ocean;
• Operational maintenance of marine meteorological and oceanographic information.

Global Observing System should be gradually formed on the basis of regional or sub-systems projects. Now we identified two such projects: European (Euro-GOOS) and Northeast Asia (NEAR-GOOS).

Project NEAR-GOOS was officially proclaimed in force on the 29th Session of the IOC Executive Council (Paris, 24 September - 4 October 1996), where two key documents were approved: "The implementation plan of the project NEAR-GOOS " and "Operational Guidelines for the exchange of data in draft NEAR-GOOS". Participants in the project are Russia, Japan, South Korea and China. In the process of development and approval of the project during the 1991-1996 biennium. a number of meetings of experts from the participating countries (Beijing, August 1994 .; Bali, November 1994 .; Bangkok, January 1996). In Tokyo, in February-March 1996, the project was approved at the third session of the IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC). The first meeting of the Project Steering Committee was held in September 1996 in the WESTPAC headquarters in Bangkok, in 1997-1999. took second, third and fourth meetings of the Coordinating Committee in Bangkok, Beijing and Tokyo, respectively. Project Implementation NEAR-GOOS is aimed at achieving the following objectives:

• Provide timely information to prevent natural disasters caused by excitement, storm surge, sea ice;
• Improving the efficiency of fisheries;
• Provision of information useful for the monitoring of marine pollution, the development of recreation and mariculture (eg, toxic algal blooms);
• Providing the information needed for modeling and forecasting.