This service tool will support activities at the Fangar Bay linked to environmental protection, fisheries and aquaculture (food health), contributing to keep local production and sustaining related jobs (job protection)
The Client
The Copernicus Marine Service, through its user engagement programme.
The Challenge
The main goal is to deliver a coastal operational service, based on an improved high resolution model system, through an specific User Interface platform to support environmental protection and acquaculture activities in the Ebro Delta.
A short-term forecast service is implemented for the Ebro Delta and the semi-enclosed Alfac Bay, delivering daily updated products for ocean physics (temperature, salinity, currents, etc.) and waves.
The Fangar Bay, in the Ebro Delta, is a vulnerable hotspot under pressure due to several anthropogenic activities. It shows the highest aquaculture annual production in Mediterranean Spanish coasts, but some decreases occur in it in recent years due to limited water renewal rates and water temperature peaks. Furthermore, Fangar Bay is part of environmentally protected areas (NATURA 2000) with a high ecological significance for local biota and migratory bird populations.
This Copernicus Marine coastal pilot demostrator ensures an operational service that meets all the requirements of LEVEL 2 Op status (following the MOI categorization), downstreaming the Copernicus Marine regional MED solution for the Ebro Delta.
The high-resolution enhanced model system will include ocean-wave coupling, an improved characterization of river freshwater forcing (including inputs from the Ebro river and agriculture canals), and a better initialization using the local IRTA CTD data.
The service wil count with a platform to ensure end-user targeted visualization of forecasts products combined with other existing information.
The Results
This service supports transition towards a blue economy, promoting the use of Copernicus Marine Service and aligning it with initiatives such as EU’s Green Deal, helping the achievement of objectives contained in the EU Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC), in the Framework Directive on Marine Strategy (Directive 2008/56/ EC) and in agreement with Action on Change Climate and Efficiency.
The enhanced operational coastal system and the new end-user service platform implemented, co-designed with IRTA, can benefit to other local acquaculture end-users, as well as to public institutions, from the regional and state administration, with responsabilities in the policy making.
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