HiSea offers data on sea water quality

The European Union (Horizon2020) has awarded the HiSea consortium in January with 2 million euro to develop, test and demonstrate information services that provide high resolution data of sea water quality.

The project will develop innovative services that will provide information and alerts to ports and aquaculture sectors to enable real time crisis management and improve future operations. These services will incorporate, and process data obtained through different Copernicus services (the EU’s Earth Observation and Monitoring service), such as the marine, land and climate services, local monitoring data, and advanced modelling. The platform is aimed at improving operation, planning and management of different marine activities, with a focus on the port and aquaculture sectors.

Consortium
The consortium is comprised of seven partners from The Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Spain, France, Greece and Israel. Ghada El Serafy from the Dutch research institute Deltares is coordinator of the HiSea Project. He explains: “The main goal of HiSea services is to deliver accurate and reliable information which is readily available, easily understandable and can fit seamlessly into users’ operation, planning and management requirements. HiSea will provide relevant information, derived from many different sources, in a simple and effective way to add value to their operations and provide them with a competitive advantage.”

Services
The HiSea information services will include:

• Early warning services on potential risk factors by issuing alerts on storms, harmful algal blooms, faecal contamination and other hazards.

• Real time crisis management regarding pollution accidents to identify the appropriate responses.

• Key performance indicators regarding fish growing rates, environmental conditions, or the level of vulnerability to storms for vessels.

• Information for planning operations including accurate and reliable meteorological, hydrodynamic and water quality forecasts.

• Knowledge data base built on cause-effect relations that will help better understand and manage future operations.

More information: HiSea