Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)

The Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) is a national collaborative research infrastructure program supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). IMOS operates as a fully integrated national system, observing ocean-basin and regional scales, and measuring key physical, biological and chemical variables that underpin marine research, environmental management and policy.

Formed in 2006, IMOS is operated by a consortium of institutions — the University of Tasmania (lead), AIMS, BoM, CSIRO, SARDI, SIMS, and UWA — through an unincorporated joint venture. The Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS) serves as the New South Wales operator of the national program, hosting a number of facilities and sub-facilities either directly or in partnership with member universities.

SIMS manages the NSW Node of IMOS, operating five facilities or sub-facilities, including Acoustic Telemetry, Animal Tagging, the NSW sub facility of the Australian National Mooring Network (ANMN), Understanding Marine Imagery (UMI) and the Fishing Ships of Opportunity Program (FishSOOP). The Animal Tracking Facility, comprising both Acoustic Telemetry and Animal Tagging, is a flagship program delivered through SIMS.

Animal Tracking
Facility

The IMOS Animal Tracking Facility, led by SIMS, comprises two sub-facilities, Acoustic Telemetry and Animal Tagging, which together deliver long-term, high-resolution data on marine and freshwater species while providing critical ocean observations from some of the world’s most difficult-to-access regions.

Acoustic telemetry monitors the movement, behaviour and connectivity of thousands of animals across Australia’s national receiver network, informing conservation, marine estate management and public safety outcomes.

Animal-borne sensors both track the movements of species and generate hundreds of thousands of oceanographic profiles from the tropics to Antarctica, offering rare insights into remote and under-sampled areas, to support global climate monitoring.

New South Wales
Moorings Sub-Facility

The IMOS National Mooring Network – NSW Moorings Sub-Facility, led by UNSW, operates long-term moored observing platforms at Coffs Harbour, Sydney (Bondi and Port Hacking) and Narooma, delivering continuous records of temperature, salinity and currents from surface to seafloor every five minutes.

Covering three of NSW’s five continental shelf bioregions, these moorings provide vital insights into the East Australian Current (EAC) and its influence on marine ecosystems. Since 2008, autonomous underwater gliders have complemented the fixed sites with spatially extensive, high-resolution observations across the shelf, measuring physical and biogeochemical properties. Event-based deployments further capture short-lived extremes such as marine heatwaves.

Fishing Vessels as Ships of Opportunity Program

The IMOS Fishing Vessels as Ships of Opportunity Program (FishSOOP), led by UNSW, partners with commercial and recreational fishers to equip vessels with small, low-impact Moana sensors that measure ocean temperature and pressure during routine fishing operations.

This innovative model delivers high-quality observations from regions that are otherwise poorly monitored, including northern Australia, the Southern Ocean and the Western Pacific.

The program delivers benefits on multiple fronts, with fishers gaining near real-time data to improve catch management and optimise operations, while science and society gain a critical stream of subsurface observations to detect marine heatwaves, improve forecasts and build climate resilience.

Understanding Marine Imagery

The IMOS Understanding Marine Imagery (UMI) sub-Facility, led by the University of Sydney and launched in 2020, has become the world’s largest open repository of georeferenced marine imagery with annotations.

Built on the open-source Squidle+ platform, it integrates data from marine parks, universities, industry and citizen science to support biodiversity monitoring, marine park management and environmental baselining.

UMI already informs government priorities, while also providing value to industry, and is positioned to support national initiatives that streamline environmental data for decision-making.