At a high level, best practices improve interoperability and facilitate training.
Best practices provide “known conditions” when looking at data and information from others and thus build Trust.
They can increase efficiency (“don’t reinvent the wheel”) which can accelerate the flow of data and information. The quality and consistency of observations will improve from the systematic use of standard methods. More broadly, there will be improvements in transparency, traceability and reproducibility.
Ultimately, there can be improvements in the connections between data, models and applications.
There are many challenges, both technical and cultural, in achieving a trusted and efficient ocean observing system. Addressing these will be an important part of the Ocean Decade.