Rowing for science: building a clearer picture of UK ocean health

Written by Fay Couceiro, Professor of Environmental Pollution, University of Portsmouth

Fay Couceiro is Professor of Environmental Pollution at the University of Portsmouth and lead scientist for the GB Row Challenge, a rowing race around Great Britain where participating boats are fitted with scientific equipment that collects environmental data, contributing to national research on ocean health. This year The Crown Estate is sponsoring the GB Row Challenge as lead environmental data partner.

As if rowing around Great Britain was not already enough of a challenge, we decided to make it even harder, by adding science into the mix.

But that scientific element is exactly what makes the GB Row Challenge so valuable. It gives us a rare opportunity to measure the health of UK seas across vast, hard-to-reach coastlines, helping to build a much-needed environmental baseline for our marine environment.

Over the past three years, we’ve been collecting data from some of the UK’s most under-sampled waters. What makes this work so powerful is how it’s gathered: rowers are collecting real-time data on microplastics, biodiversity, underwater noise, sea temperature and salinity as they navigate around Britain.

This is helping us build one of the most detailed environmental datasets ever assembled for British coastal seas. And that matters — because without consistent, long-term data, we can’t fully understand how our oceans are changing. Are our seas warming? Is biodiversity declining? Are restoration efforts working?

One dataset can only ever offer a snapshot. The real value comes from returning year after year, allowing us to track trends over time and separate natural variation from long-term change. Each expedition strengthens the next, refining our methods and improving the quality of the science.

What’s especially exciting is the scale and efficiency of this approach. Collecting this level of marine data using traditional research vessels would be significantly more resource-intensive. Instead, the GB Row Challenge offers a low-carbon, cost-effective platform for ocean monitoring.

That data now has found the perfect home in The Crown Estate’s open access platform Marine Data Exchange, the world’s largest collection of marine industry survey data, helping ensure it is accessible for scientists, policymakers and industry, and can inform future decisions about our seas.

Ultimately this project is about building a consistent, longitudinal dataset of UK ocean health.