Privately-owned vessels can participate in increasing our knowledge of the ocean by sharing depth measurements from navigation instruments while out at sea.

Yachts explore the world’s oceans, often in areas where data is sparse, non-existent or of poor quality. These are exactly the places where contribution of global seafloor mapping efforts can have the greatest impact.

The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project is a collaborative project between The Nippon Foundation and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), Seabed 2030 seeks to inspire the complete mapping of the world’s ocean by 2030, and to compile all the data into the freely available GEBCO Ocean Map.

Seabed 2030 is formally endorsed as a Decade Action of the UN Ocean Decade.

GEBCO is a joint programme of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), and is the only organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor.

Launched at the United Nations Ocean Conference in 2017, the project coordinates and oversees the sourcing and compilation of bathymetric data through its five data centres into the freely-available GEBCO Grid, to produce the definitive map of the world ocean floor.