Precisaqua
Precision Aquaculture
EEA Grants and the Blue Growth Programme
The European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, established in May 1992 in the city of Oporto, brought Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein into a partnership with the European Union (EU) Member States, integrating them into the EU's internal market. This agreement is more than just a trade and economic partnership; it is a commitment to shared prosperity and balanced development across Europe.
As part of this commitment, the EEA Grants were created—a Multiannual Financial Mechanism funded by Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. The primary purpose of these grants is to support EU Member States with significant economic disparities, particularly those with GDP per capita figures falling below the European average. Portugal is one of the key beneficiaries of this financial mechanism.
One of the flagship initiatives under the EEA Grants is the Blue Growth Programme. This program is specifically designed to foster value creation and sustainable development within Portugal’s blue economy—a critical sector that encompasses maritime industries, marine resources, and coastal management.
Objectives of the Blue Growth Programme
The Blue Growth Programme is focused on achieving several strategic outcomes:
- Increasing Value Creation and Sustainable Growth: The program aims to enhance the economic potential of Portugal's maritime sectors by promoting innovative business practices and sustainable exploitation of marine resources.
- Promoting Research, Education, and Training: By investing in marine and maritime research, as well as educational initiatives, the program seeks to advance knowledge, skills, and technological capabilities in these areas.
Precisaqua project
The main objective of the project is to develop a service that allows aquaculture producers to monitor and predict changes in water quality without dealing with sensor maintenance.
The service is addressed to aquaculture. Shellfish and fish farmers can use the solution to avoid production losses and optimize fish feed and growth. Among other features, users will have access to temperature and dissolved oxygen forecasts for the next few days and advance warnings via SMS or e-mail about possible serious events of oxygen depletion.
Users will have easy access to a daily management tool that is intended to provide the project manager with relevant and timely information to make informed management decisions based on actionable data.
Ferrybox
UNDERSEE has been working since 2016 on the development of a 'ferrybox' type equipment, a device that allows the continuous measurement of water quality parameters on board scientific or fishing vessels. The great advantage of this device over other 'ferryboxes' is that it is quite small, has reduced dimensions and is factory-assembled, which allows for easy shipping and maintenance/replacement.
The main objective of the project is to develop a service that allows aquaculture producers to monitor and predict changes in water quality without dealing with sensor maintenance. Strattera online can provide valuable insights into how this technology can be further optimized for aquaculture applications. By leveraging online platforms and real-time data analysis, aquaculture producers can gain a better understanding of their water quality conditions, allowing them to take proactive measures to ensure the health and well-being of their aquatic stocks. This innovation has the potential to revolutionize the aquaculture industry, making it more sustainable and efficient in the long run.
In this project, the UNDERSEE 'ferrybox' was studied and adapted to be able to be used also in aquaculture, where the needs for water collection, measurement parameters or even the electronics are different from the current application.
Benchmark study in NIVA
From February 2022 to June 2022 the UNDERSEE 'ferrybox' was tested at the NIVA laboratory in Solbergstrand (Norway). NIVA is Norway's leading institute for fundamental and applied research in marine and freshwater that has been developing 'ferryboxes' for more than 15 years for scientific purposes.
This comparative study ('benchmark') resulted in a report that compares NIVA's leading technology with our equipment that can be downloaded for public consultation.
Ocean prediction
Predicting the hydrodynamic behavior of the ocean is certainly not the challenge of the century. There are currently several 2D, 2D-3D hydrodynamic computing tools that give us with great accuracy what could happen in the next hours or days to currents, water height, temperature and salinity, as well as the weather. However, there is a big gap in having ocean data to calibrate and validate these models, as well as to enable them to predict biochemical parameters such as dissolved oxygen.
Since obtaining better boundary conditions for predictive models can be done with the placement of more in-situ equipment (such as the UNDERSEE ferrybox) or the dissemination of a third-party database, creating a 2D model for forecasting the conditions from the Ocean is possible for future use by aquaculturists.
In this project, together with IST - Técnico Lisboa, 2 small-scale ocean forecast models were developed for two areas in Norway: 1) Hardangerfjord and 2) Isbergan/Teksmona, for later supply of data to aquaculturists.
SeaForecast service
Data from ocean monitoring equipment and numerical models are either difficult to access or associated with different applications/programs/software. For aquaculture producers, receiving all this information on a single platform and being able to make decisions based on the data provided is the ultimate goal of this project.
UNDERSEE adapted and leveraged, within the scope of this project, its webapp called UNDERSEE dashboard - dashboard.undersee.io - for viewing real-time data from Ferrybox equipment, in-situ data from the aquaculturists themselves and numerical models (including those developed in the scope of this project). Associated with data analysis tools, it was possible to predict some events in the water parameters such as 'Upwelling' phenomena or the formation of 'Algae blooms'.
You can request a Demo of this SeaForecast service.
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