46 Scientists from the region gathered again in Phuket, Thailand, 29－31 August 2016, stepping up their efforts to develop a long term program monitoring the ecological impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems for the region.

The three-day WESTPAC event is a follow-up to previous two workshops in 2015, with the aim to review and test, through expert discussions and practical demonstrations either in field or laboratory, a set of consistent, comparable and cost-effective “Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)”, which could be used for monitoring the ecological impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems. While these efforts are focused on the establishment of a regional ocean acidification observing network, we are ideally striving for consistency and comparability as part of the Global Ocean Acidification - Observing Network (GOA-ON).