Water covers 71% of the earth's surface with oceans, rivers and lakes. The world’s oceans and inland waters are of vital importance to climate regulation, agriculture, nutrient production, resource retrieval and transportation, yet as a harsh environment, they are under-explored and under-sampled. Thus there is significant interest in wireless, in-water, communications to support research, environmental monitoring, commercial activities, military operations and other applications.

Underwater wireless networking has attracted significant attention recently because of progress in physical layer research and the promise of networked systems. However, the physical challenges of underwater channels, and the complexity of different environments, require new approaches to network design. Challenges at the physical layer include frequency-dependent bandwidth and attenuation, time-varying multi-path, the low speed of sound in water, and the high levels of optical and RF attenuation.  These features impact every layer of the protocol suite in an underwater network.

The goal of WUWNet is to bring together researchers and practitioners in areas relevant to underwater networks. Thus, all layers of the protocol stack, from the physical layer to application, will be represented. Its objective is to serve as a forum for presenting state of the art research, exchanging ideas and experiences, and facilitating interaction and collaboration.