At the national level, BOSS is part of the SOMLIT network (Observation Service in Coastal Environment) created in 1995 and labeled SNO (National Observation Service) by the CNRS/INSU since 1997 to provide a basic description of the environmental characteristics of the French coastal environment. The network currently includes 10 marine stations spread all over the French coast.
This involves measurements of a set of 15 biogeochemical and physical parameters at a weekly rate, where the analysis is done according to policies and protocols, under the control of a quality approach, well established, regularly verified and compared participating laboratories. Thus intercomparison exercises involving all SOMLIT stations are performed annually. The goal is to ensure the reproducibility of the analysis results for each parameter.