Enrichment and analysis of the Marine Station atlas

The Marine Station atlas is a database that has been compiled since 2017 as part of the activities of the World Association of Marine Stations. This database includes, among other things, the locations of approximately 700 marine stations around the world, as well as their dates of establishment.As part of the OCEANLINKS research project (ANR-25-CE55-1092, https://geographie-cites.cnrs.fr/en/oceanlinks-2/), we study the impact of marine stations locations on their development, on the scientific collaborations between stations, and on their evolution. We also aim to examine the links between the geographic locations of these various stations and the research topics of the scientists working there.These research themes require a database of marine station locations. We have therefore use and enriched the data from the WAMS marine stations atlas. The purpose of this presentation is to outline the enrichment operations that have been carried out and those planned. In particular, we will address the issue of linking the marine station database with Wikidata and OpenStreetMap and the automatic enrichment that this operation has enabled. We will also address the issue of characterising the various marine stations, which can be of very diverse types, as well as our reflections on accounting for the diachronic dimension (the emergence, disappearance, or evolution of marine stations). Finally, we present a descriptive analysis of this database, categorising the stations according to the size of the town in which they are located (in terms of population), the continent on which they are located, and the sea or ocean in their vicinity. We show that the spatial distribution of marine stations, as measured by these various criteria, has changed over time.