From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “How the humble neutron can help solve some of the universe’s deepest mysteries”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

5.29.23
Michael Allen

European Spallation Source, Lund Sweden 22 February 2022

Scientists are unleashing the power of neutrons to improve understanding of everyday materials and tackle fundamental questions in physics.

Apart from flashbacks that the hit Netflix series Breaking Bad may have conjured up, most of us have likely happily forgotten what we learned in chemistry classes back in school.

So here’s a quick brush-up: chemistry looks at the building blocks of our physical world, such as atoms, and the changes they undergo. An atom consists of a nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by a cloud of electrons.

The quark structure of the neutron. 15 January 2018 Jacek Rybak.

The quark structure of the proton. 16 March 2006 Arpad Horvath.

Free the neutrons

Now for something high school chemistry might not have taught us: the humble neutron, found in the nucleus of every atom but hydrogen, can – if manipulated in just the right way – shed light on everything from the climate crisis and energy to health and quantum computing.

One such way is a rather spectacular process known as “spallation” where high-energy particles destabilize an atom’s nucleus, which in turn releases some of the neutrons found there.

When harnessed, these newly freed neutrons can be used like X-rays to map the inner structure of materials.

Currently under construction in Lund in Sweden the European Spallation Source (ESS) is expected to come online in 2027. Once it achieves its full specifications, its unprecedented flux and spectral range is set to make it the most powerful and versatile neutron source for science in the world.

The purpose of the facility, said Jimmy Binderup Andersen, head of innovation and industry at the ESS, ‘is to create neutrons, a neutron beam, to be used for scientific purposes.’

Once the facility is up and running, scientists from across Europe and the rest of the world will be able to use its 15 different beamlines to conduct fundamental research.

Not X-ray

According to Andersen, a neutron beam “is not the same as an X-ray, but it is complementary and uses some of the same physical laws.”

Like X-rays, neutrons can be used to probe materials and biological systems. But they interact with materials in different ways to the photons in high-energy X-ray beams and therefore provide different types of information about their targets.

For example, neutron beams can say something about the interior dynamics of lithium-ion batteries, reveal obscured details from ancient artefacts or clarify the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. They can also be used to explore fundamental physics. It almost seems like a case of “what can’t they do?”

Neutron bombardments

As part of the EU-funded BrightnESS-2 project, partly coordinated by Andersen, technologies developed for the ESS were shared with industry in Europe, to benefit society at large. For instance, some of the power systems developed for the ESS beamlines could be useful for renewable energy technologies like wind turbines.

Recently, the ESS was contacted by a European semiconductor manufacturer interested in the radiation fields the neutron source can generate. The world we live in is constantly bombarded with neutrons, produced when high-energy particles from outer space, such as cosmic rays from the sun, collide with Earth’s atmosphere.

Cosmic rays produced by high-energy astrophysics sources ASPERA collaboration AStroParticle ERAnet.

Over time, this exposure can damage electrical components.

The ESS can mimic this neutron bombardment, but on a much faster time scale, enabling it to be used to test the durability of critical electrical components, such as those used in airplanes, wind turbines and spacecraft.

Now ESS is teaming up with other research institutes and companies to find a possible future use of a facility like ESS to address such specific industry needs.

ESS 2.0

Although the ESS is still being built, scientists are already working on an upgrade to the facility.

When the ESS first opens it will have one moderator, but the EU-funded HighNESS project is developing a second moderator system. The moderators will slow down the neutrons generated during the spallation process to an energy level that the scientific instruments can use.

‘The neutron energy really matters in a neutron facility, because depending on the neutron energy, you can do different kinds of physics,’ said Valentina Santoro, coordinator of the HighNESS project.

While the first moderator will provide high-brightness, which is a very focused beam of neutrons, the source being developed by the HighNESS project will deliver a high intensity. In other words, a large number of neutrons.

The two moderators will allow scientists to explore different aspects of the dynamics and structure of materials such as polymers, biomolecules, liquid metals and batteries.

A fundamental mystery

The second moderator will also enable explorations of fundamental physics to try and see a neutron become an antineutron for the first time.

“This is very interesting, because you observe a phenomenon where matter becomes antimatter,” said Santoro, who is a particle physicist based at the ESS. ‘If you observe something like that you can understand one of the biggest unsolved mysteries – why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.’

This experiment can only be done at ESS, Santoro said, because it requires a huge number of neutrons and the ESS will have the highest number in the world.

“You just need one neutron that becomes an antineutron, and that is it, you’ve found this process where matter becomes antimatter,” Santoro said.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “Watching over water – Earth’s most precious resource”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

5.25.23
Helen Massy-Beresford

Satellites are helping Europe protect its lakes and lagoons and rivers.

At Lake Razelm in Romania, researchers are testing new ways of monitoring water quality. © Gabriela Insuratelu, Shutterstock.com

It is early morning on the Razelm-Sinoe lagoon in Romania when a small boat sets out with instruments and probes. The researchers on board are collecting water samples and measurements to bring to the laboratory for analysis.

Located on the shores of the Black Sea, Lake Razelm is part of the most extensive wetland in Europe and of a World Heritage site: the Danube Delta.

Close up and afar

The researchers are part of an EU-funded project called CERTO tracking water quality along coasts and in places that transition between fresh and saltwater like lagoons, estuaries and large rivers. The team gets support not just from waterborne transport but also from something much more distant: a satellite network.

‘Traditionally, people have gone out in boats and sampled,’ said Professor Steve Groom, CERTO coordinator and head of science/earth observation at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK. ‘But it’s expensive and they can’t be everywhere along the coast on the same day. We’re moving towards using satellites to complement in situ monitoring.’

The Razelm-Sinoe lagoon was almost closed off from the Black Sea during the 1970s as part of a plan to create a freshwater source for agriculture.

Nowadays it only has one sea inlet. The limited water exchange with the sea, combined with mineral and nutrient run-off from nearby farms, led in the 1990s to excessive plant and algal growth and low-oxygen levels that harmed fish and wildlife in the lagoon.

The lagoon’s diversity, including varying water depths and levels of salinity, makes for a valuable study site – and the interest is not just academic. Ensuring the health of coastal waters is vital both for ecosystems and for people who make a living from activities such as fishing, farming and tourism.

The skyward help that the CERTO researchers receive is through Copernicus, the Earth observation part of the EU’s space programme at The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU).

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The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Copernicus mission

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Copernicus Sentinels

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Copernicus Sentinel-1B radar satellite.

ESA Copernicus Sentinel-2.

ESA Copernicus Sentinel-3.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenn] [Europäische Weltraumorganization] (EU) Copernicus Sentinel-5P.

ESA/Airbus Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter CRISTAL Mission depiction.

Copernicus Science Center campus

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‘CERTO puts the use of satellite data in the spotlight,’ said Adriana Maria Constantinescu, technical leader of a Razelm-Sinoe lagoon case study. ‘We can get good-quality data from satellite images and the work we do in situ helps improve algorithms.’

Water colours

CERTO is using on-site measurements and satellite-observation data in six places. Among them are also the world-famous lagoon in Venice, Italy and the Curonian lagoon in Lithuania.

The project, due to end this September after almost four years, is investigating ways to classify water.

‘The technical term is optical water types, but it’s really just a way of saying “this water is a bit muddy” or “this area is nice and blue,”’ said Groom.

The term categorizes bodies of water based on the colour of the light they reflect.

Murky green ponds, for example, contain more organic matter such as algae than clear ponds and reflect less blue light. Murky water also indicates a surplus of nutrients that could be harmful to fish and wildlife.

In this way, using satellites to measure how much light bodies of water reflect can help determine their health without needing to go out in a boat and take samples. It also gives scientists a database to draw on when analyzing waters classified as the same type.

“The value is that you don’t necessarily have to take in situ measurements to validate your algorithms everywhere,” said Groom. “We’re trying to go from lakes all the way to oceans and come up with a common set of water types for all those waters.”
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User-friendly info

CERTO also wants to make it easier for scientists to use the available information on water quality and bridge existing gaps in the data.

At present three Copernicus services, each using different approaches, provide information on water quality, making it hard for scientists to have an overview. In addition, some areas such as transitional waters aren’t covered by any service at all.

The project’s legacy will be prototype software that can be “plugged in” to existing Copernicus services as well as popular open-source software called SNAP that’s used more widely in the research community.

Constantinescu, the head of a Razelm-Sinoe study, expects the CERTO work to lead to more research at the lagoon. The filtering properties of reed beds or their role in attenuating wind waves could be some of the nature-based solutions investigated to deal with coastal erosion.

So-Rad platform used to gauge water colour. © Adriana Maria Constantinescu.

Vital groundwater

Satellite data is also used to keep an eye on Europe’s groundwater.

The EU-funded G3P project tracked variations in vital groundwater reserves for three years through 2022.

The project used data both from Copernicus and from a joint US-Germany satellite mission known as GRACE that, since its start in 2002, has transformed scientists’ view of how water moves and is stored around the planet.

NASA Grace

National Aeronautics Space Agency/GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences [Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Geowissenschaften] (DE) Grace-FO satellites launched in May 2018.

‘Groundwater is one of the major resources for humankind,’ said Professor Andreas Güntner, who coordinated G3P and works at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam.

Groundwater accounts for almost a third of total freshwater resources worldwide. In the EU, it supplies 65% of drinking water and a quarter of water for agricultural irrigation.

Groundwater has also been declared an essential climate variable – a critical indicator of how the Earth’s climate is changing – by an international non-governmental organization known as the Global Climate Observing System.

Copernicus doesn’t yet provide consistent, worldwide data on groundwater reserves and how they’re evolving.

Data wonders

The G3P team built a new dataset to fill that gap.

The researchers relied on information from GRACE, which has featured twin satellites. An initial GRACE mission lasted 15 years and a follow-up one began in 2018.

The distance between the two satellites changes constantly depending on the mass distribution below them. For example, when one approaches heavy masses such as mountains, ice sheets and large groundwater reserves, it speeds up and the distance from the other satellite increases.

By tracking the gravitational push and pull on the spacecraft as they fly over different landscapes, scientists were able to map out the distribution of water on and below Earth’s surface and how it’s changing.

Knowing more about groundwater reserves, their changes and how they are affected by human activities such as farming is essential as countries seek to improve the management of water resources generally.

‘In some areas of the world, taking water from aquifers for irrigation has led to more withdrawal than replenishment – in other words unsustainable use,’ Güntner said. ‘The first global observation-based groundwater dataset is really an amazing thing.’

Still, plenty more research lies ahead to make greater use of the dataset.

“The next step is in-depth analysis of the groundwater data we obtained to try to understand how groundwater resources have changed over the last 20 years, how those changes may be related to climate change, changing rainfall and how much is due to human interference,” said Güntner.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “Sand dunes offer clues to coastal erosion and how to prevent it”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

5.2.23
Sofia Strodt

The management of these natural barriers through the ages could hold lessons for coping with climate change and rising sea levels today.

European coastal regions have a long history of interacting with sand dunes. Image credit: CC0 via Pixabay

The 200 million Europeans who live in coastal zones are already feeling the impact of global warming through extreme variations in sea level and flooding.

Many parts of Europe could suffer 10 times more coastal flooding by 2100, depending on the trajectory of greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change, according to the European Environment Agency.

History lessons

“For major cities close to the shore, this is going to be a big issue,” said Dr Joana Freitas, an environmental historian at the University of Lisbon in Portugal.

The predicted rise in sea levels has focused attention on the measures that can be taken to protect Europe’s coastline. As the first natural line of defense against flooding and coastal erosion, sand dunes have an important role to play in sheltering these areas.

But today’s sand dunes don’t provide as much protection as they once did.

Looking at how people have interacted with nature can provide valuable insights into recent changes in the environment and humankind’s role in causing them, according to Freitas.

She is the lead researcher of the EU-funded DUNES project, which is putting together a complete history of human-environment interactions in coastal areas worldwide.

The project, which began in November 2018 and runs through April 2024, covers France, Portugal, the UK, Brazil, Mozambique, North America and New Zealand.

“Humans have a long history of connecting with dunes,” said Freitas.

That history is marked by ups and downs. In the 17th to 18th centuries, dunes in Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Portugal were considered dangerous because the sand blown inland by the wind silted rivers and harmed farms.

Tree traps

To prevent this, coastal inhabitants planted marram grass – Ammophila arenaria – to trap the sands.

Later, from the end of the 18th century, several countries in Europe supported the planting of trees on dunes to prevent the destruction of arable land and increase dunes’ economic value by turning them into forested areas.

Trees can grow well on stabilized dunes and become part of their ecosystem. And, in general, vegetation such as grasses, shrubs and bushes can help stabilize dunes and prevent their erosion as well as provide a home for plants and wildlife.

But large-scale tree plantings carried out in the 19th century and early 20th century caused more damage than the inhabitants likely realized. For one, as these new forests often were monocultures of non-native species, they disrupted the existing ecosystems.

Second, extensive tree planting – along with the spread of urban areas, building of harbors and dams, dredging of navigation channels and construction of seawalls and low barriers known as groynes – caused profound changes in coastal areas.

For example, they deeply affected the balance between sediment added to and removed from a coastal system’s littoral zone, which is the part of a sea close to the shore. This activity reduced the amount of sand on some beaches, limiting their ability to act as a buffer and protect structures and buildings on the coast.

Wave power

“Dunes are keepers of sand, they are reservoirs,” said Freitas. “When there are bigger and stronger waves during storms, the sand is taken from the beach, which creates an underwater barrier, so the next waves will be blocked.”

Eventually, over weeks or months, more gentle waves gradually return the eroded sand from offshore to the beach. This fluctuating of the shoreline backwards and forwards over time is a normal coastal process that is hardly noticeable in normal times but can be dramatic during storms.

Freitas is concerned that if the natural balance isn’t maintained, beaches will eventually be destroyed and the coastal protection dunes provide will be lost.

Olivier Burvingt, a researcher at the University of Bordeaux in France, is well aware of the potential impact of storms and sea level rises on coastal sand dunes.

As part of the EU-funded ERoDES project, Burvingt and colleagues are seeking to understand how dunes respond to and recover from extreme weather events along the Atlantic coast of Europe. The three-year project runs through August 2024.

By using light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, laser technology, the ERoDES team can collect precise data from the air along several kilometres of dunes.

“Regional coastal monitoring programmes across Europe provide us with data that were collected using aircraft that fly over dunes,” said Burvingt. “That way we can measure and study the topographical changes of the dune sediments with a vertical precision of up to 10 centimetres.”

Like Freitas and her team, ERoDES is also looking back in time and drawing on physical and digital archives and models to understand more about dunes’ behavior now and in the future.

Regional puzzles

The vast amount of data collected by the project can provide insights into the difference in resilience of some of the most exposed coastal dunes along the Atlantic coast.

For example, the team is studying the response and recovery rates of eight coastal dune areas ranging from north-western England to southwestern France in the 2011-2020 period.

All the areas under study have been exposed to and eroded by massive storms in the Atlantic, particularly extreme weather experienced in the winter of 2013-2014.

A puzzling element for the researchers is that, although exposed to the same storms, the dunes have responded differently and have all recovered at varying speeds. While some areas have returned to the same state they were in before the storms, others are still recovering or have lost even more sand.

“We’re trying to understand why their response is different,” said Burvingt.

All eight sites have different environmental characteristics, including tides, climate, dune size, coastline shape and vegetation density.

One of the main findings from the project so far is that the dunes with the steepest slopes were the ones to lose the most sand.

Another is that the rate of recovery is mainly dependent on the amount of sediment available along the coastline. Being able accurately to assess these sediment budgets is key to anticipating the evolution of coastal dunes.

At the project’s end, these results will be shared with coastal authorities across Europe. Based on the characteristics of each region, officials can tailor a strategy to protect the dunes, restore the coasts and guard against future storms and flooding.

New approach

Both ERoDES and DUNES advance a broad EU initiative to help cities and local authorities better understand the climate threat they face and how to react in time.

But in doing so, the two projects take a new approach to adapting to global warming by avoiding a traditional focus on new technologies and methods that can prevent, or at least reduce, the impact of future flooding, drought, wildfires and other consequences of rising temperatures.

Instead, ERoDES and DUNES move towards relying on steps that work with an ecosystem rather than introducing traditional human-made fixes such as seawalls, dams and dikes. Future dune restoration and protection are set to depend on planting native vegetation and re-introducing indigenous plant species – actions that are kinder on the environment and relatively inexpensive.

“This simple and effective nature-based solution has been done by coastal populations for centuries in some European countries,” said Freitas.

As for the research itself, she stressed the benefits of its interdisciplinary nature.

“One of the most important contributions of DUNES is to show that transdisciplinary work between the humanities and the sciences is possible, rich and valuable and should be a path to follow more often in the future,” Freitas said.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “For priceless European art extra protection costs very little”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

5.1.23
Alex Whiting

The Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice is using a new material to protect its art collection. © s74, Shutterstock.com

Preserving priceless works of art.

Inexpensive new materials and sensors will help even small museums prevent irreversible damage to objects.

Overlooking the waters of the Grand Canal in Venice, the former home of American art collector Peggy Guggenheim houses one of Italy’s most important collections of 20th century works. Until recently, many of them were at risk from an invisible attacker: acetic acid released by their ageing wooden picture frames.

Chemists based in another renowned Italian city, Florence, have come up with a new material that will protect the artworks from acetic acid, formaldehyde and other damaging volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for between 50 and 100 years.

Clever and cheap

‘We synthesized the first absorber for acetic acid and formaldehyde using a very clever, cheap method,” said Piero Baglioni, professor of physical chemistry at the Center for Colloid and Surface Science, or CSGI, in the University of Florence.

The material is flexible and biodegradable and can absorb twice its weight in pollutants. It’s made mainly from castor oil.

Curators at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection have applied sheets of it to the backs of paintings and on a wall in one room, which includes a 1929 painting by Vasily Kandinsky and a 1915 sculpture by Umberto Boccioni.

Levels of acetic acid in the room have since dropped from two parts per million (ppm), which is high enough to damage artwork, to safe levels of 0.5 ppm, according to Baglioni.

The material, Nanorestore VOCs, can be produced in any shape, size and colour, said Baglioni, who coordinated an EU-funded research project called APACHE that developed a range of products designed to protect valuable artworks.

The discovery is likely to have a major impact on the future health of artworks, including those in storage. That’s because many galleries and museums store their collections in wooden containers, which release VOCs.

The Pompidou Centre in Paris – home to Europe’s largest collection of modern and contemporary art – is testing the material for its storage containers. The museum keeps most of its 120 000 pieces in wooden crates, including works by Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Braque.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “The people power being harnessed for cleaner and cheaper energy”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

3.29.23
Andrew Dunne

As Europe weans itself off fossil fuels, local energy networks are tapping renewable sources to fill the gap and cut consumer bills.

In Valladolid, Spain, a new technology is helping consumers use more renewable energy. © David Spence del Valle, Shutterstock.com.

They might look like ordinary plugs, but hook up a heat pump or electric-vehicle charger using one of the smart widgets and the result could be big environmental gains and household savings.

In the northern Spanish city of Valladolid, Santiago Campos is testing a new technology that promises to change the way he and many others consume energy at home. Campos had a series of smart widgets installed in his house late last year and is now set to reap the benefits with more energy efficiency and lower heating bills.

Big bonuses

‘I’m doing this for environmental reasons and also to save money at home, in particular to use my heat pump efficiently,’ said the 55-year-old Campos, who works for a local electricity cooperative called Energética Coop. ‘I also want to contribute to the development of a new service that I think could have a big impact for our members and for the environment.’

Welcome to the EU-funded REDREAM project. It is seeking to spur the use of cheaper sources of renewable power.

Deploying a data-based technological system that optimizes how and when consumers use energy, the initiative is helping Europe wean itself off fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

Months of headlines about soaring energy costs have highlighted the importance of Europe’s goal to green its energy. Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, the EU was preparing higher renewables targets for 2030 as part of the fight against climate change.

Renewables will account for at least 40% of EU energy consumption on average at the end of the decade, up from a previous 2030 goal of 32%, according to new draft European legislation.

Yet this goal poses challenges, not least because of the intermittent nature of renewables such as solar and wind power.

Peaks in energy demand rarely align with peaks in renewables production. Fire up a heat pump at home in the evening and chances are the electricity used will have been generated from fossil fuels.

Affordable and easy

‘Current options for consumers to change their energy usage are very limited,’ said Dr Álvaro Sánchez Miralles, an energy expert who coordinates REDREAM. The three-year initiative runs through September this year.

The project’s big idea is an ‘‘energy ecosystem’’ that can reduce peaks in demand by spreading energy usage more evenly throughout the day. The system can control devices remotely and take advantage of conditions when renewables are readily available.

For example, if it’s a bright sunny day and solar power is in abundance, the system knows to use the opportunity of cleaner, cheaper energy to charge things like electric vehicles.

All of which means being able to make more use of renewables and doing so in a way that is practical for households, according to Miralles, who is a senior associate professor at the Institute for Research in Technology (IIT) at the Comillas Pontificial University in the Spanish capital Madrid.

An app interface helps consumers better understand usage and an ‘‘energy assistant’’ advises on options.

One mode automatically switches on devices when renewables are abundant and cheaper. Another sends an alert about these moments to consumers and leaves it to them to decide whether or not to activate devices.

In Valladolid, Campos says he has let the technology make all the decisions about his heat pump and praised the whole system.

‘I set it to automatically control my heat pump,’ he said. ‘It’s been so easy to use and is already having a big effect.’

Campos says it’s too early to calculate precise savings.

While only a handful of users in Spain, Croatia and the UK is so far testing the technology, when scaled up in the years to come it could have a significant impact in boosting renewables.

‘Our real ambition is to have millions of users so we can bring about these changes en masse,’ said Miralles.

Role reversal

Through local partners, REDREAM is also helping consumers to become renewable producers too – a role that has spawned the term ‘‘prosumers’’.

This can take different forms – from building a wind turbine in a community to installing solar panels on household roofs. The team sees another opportunity here to increase renewables and drive down energy costs.

In Valladolid, Campos is looking at how the REDREAM technology might enable him to make more direct use of the solar energy he’s generating on his roof in powering his own home.

Through the technology, local power generation and household energy consumption can be integrated.

Others too see benefits in greater local renewables production.

Kostas Galanakis is co-ordinator of the Smart-BEEjS project – a consortium of eight universities and research centres across Europe promoting the development of ‘‘positive energy districts’’, or PEDs.

The project complements EU plans to establish 100 such energy districts by 2025. It started in 2019 and runs through April this year.

PEDs are communities or neighbourhoods that, through generating their own renewables, produce more energy than they consume.

Virtuous circles

This energy can then be sold back to the grid and, when profits are reinvested, a virtuous circle is created: revenues from renewables are used to accelerate local green transitions and can help poorer households pay their energy bills.

Successful examples exist, but they are typically small-scale. Smart-BEEjS is using them to try to determine what works and what is needed for more PEDs to emerge.

Galanakis points to cases like Aardehuizen in the Netherlands and Denmark’s Samsø Island, where consumers are reaping economic and environmental rewards by producing their own energy.

Aardehuizen has just 23 homes. Each is heated with passive solar heat (large windows on the south), solar collectors, wood stoves and heat pumps. While the community is connected to the electricity grid, it is largely self-sufficient thanks to solar panels.

In 1997, Samsø won a government contract to become energy self-sufficient based on 100% renewables. More than a quarter of a century on, the island generates all its own electricity and heat with offshore and onshore wind turbines and solar panels.

While political support and new funding are crucial for PEDs to flourish elsewhere, the evidence that the Smart-BEEjS team produces can feed into future policy decisions, according to Galanakis, who is associate professor of innovation systems and entrepreneurship at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.

In the longer term, he sees a growing appetite and enormous potential for building energy systems from the bottom up so the most vulnerable people in society benefit.

‘We’re focused on decentralising the energy system to reduce fossil-fuel dependency and to make it socially just so that it doesn’t leave vulnerable people behind,’ Galanakis said.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “Mighty oceans and humble ponds play key roles in biodiversity”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

3.27.23
Sofia Strodt

By monitoring oceans and peering into ponds European projects seek to protect an array of animal and plant life.

Satellite data can help show whether marine conditions are right for certain species to thrive. Image credit: CC0 via Unsplash.

In January, word emerged that scientists had discovered a new colony of penguins in Antarctica using images from Europe’s flagship Copernicus satellite network. By coincidence, the same month marked the start of an initiative that will rely on the same Earth-observation system for different purposes.

The EU-funded NECCTON project is gearing up to help Europe protect endangered fish and whales. It will harness the European Copernicus Marine Service – or CMEMS – to collect more detailed data on species threatened by habitat loss, unsustainable fishing and industrial pollution.

From satellites to seabeds

‘This is going to be particularly helpful for policymakers, marine managers and fisheries,’ said Stefano Ciavatta, coordinator of the project running through 2026. ‘We want to provide better simulations and projections of the state of marine ecosystems and of their ability to support diverse fish communities.’

While earth-observation satellites including Europe’s flagship Copernicus number in the many hundreds, it’s often claimed that we know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of the moon.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Copernicus Sentinels

Biodiversity protection has received fresh impetus as a result of a United Nations summit in Canada in December 2022 and a landmark UN agreement in March this year on a High Seas Treaty to protect oceans. And with 68 000 kilometres of coastline – more than the US and Russia combined –the EU is stepping up efforts to improve marine health.

CMEMS, one of six Copernicus services, provides analyses and forecasts of marine environments for all kinds of users ranging from fishing hobbyists to the navies of EU Member States. It is run by France-based Mercator Ocean International, a non-profit entity in the process of becoming an intergovernmental organization.

The Copernicus marine service monitors all the European regional seas and the world’s oceans. Its models forecast things like sea temperatures, tides and currents, making it easier to anticipate developments such as fish migration patterns.

NECCTON plans to provide a more complete picture of the environmental state of these waters by gathering data on fish, pollution and the seabed conditions for marine life.

‘We will develop new tools to share the modelling capabilities of the Copernicus Marine Service across the different centres in Europe, optimise scientific efforts and boost collaboration,’ said Ciavatta, an oceanographer at Mercator Ocean International.

Clearer views

The ultimate aim is to help users of the service make better-informed decisions about the sustainable use of marine resources.

The Copernicus marine service could, for instance, deliver information on where tuna populations are located or whether marine habitats have the right conditions for dolphins.

To make sound policy decisions, scientists and authorities need projections on how changes that result from global warming, pollution and overfishing could affect the marine system as a whole.

NECCTON plans to simulate changes in organisms within the food web using climate scenarios. This activity could, for example, enable researchers to get a clearer picture of the impact of declining fish stocks on the marine system over the coming decades.

Pond treasures

When it comes to protecting biodiversity, it’s not just the mighty oceans that have researchers’ attention. So do humble duck ponds.

The EU-funded PONDERFUL project is examining the relationship between ponds and their surrounding environment. The initiative is focusing on the wide range of living organisms to which ponds are home.

Fish, toads, snails, dragonflies and leeches are just some of the creatures making up a vast, balanced web that, if disrupted, could result in the ecosystem’s collapse.

‘Collectively, ponds are the richest freshwater habitats,’ said project coordinator Sandra Brucet, a biologist and researcher on aquatic ecology at the University of Vic in Spain. ‘They are more abundant than lakes, rivers and wetlands.’

Research suggests that ponds make a greater contribution to biodiversity than many larger bodies of water by supporting more plants and animals, many of which are endangered.

Nonetheless, ponds so far have been largely neglected by policymakers. For example, a major piece of EU legislation in 2000 on cleaning up water bodies excludes for the most part those smaller than 50 hectares. Also, research on ponds has long been overlooked.

‘Two decades ago, researchers mainly focused on lakes and rivers,’ said Brucet, who came up with the idea of PONDERFUL.

Home stretch

Now things are changing as the project, which began in late 2020, enters its final two years.

With more than 80 researchers from 11 countries – Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and Uruguay – the initiative is deepening knowledge about how best to manage and restore ponds in a changing climate.

PONDERFUL is evaluating future “pondscapes” at eight demonstration sites that include a total of more than 500 ponds. Testing will help develop a guide for reducing pollution in ponds, creating new ones and helping them serve broader environmental goals such as the preservation of biodiversity.

Runoff from agricultural fields is one of the main threats to the health of ponds. Nutrients in such runoff can cause harmful algal blooms, a lack of oxygen and dead zones as fish die off.

Key lessons

Brucet and her team have already drawn some important lessons.

An accumulation of debris and an increase in sediment loads, which result mainly from agricultural-field erosion and are usually rich in nutrients from fertilizer runoff, can have a harmful effect on the overall state of ponds.

Sediment increases are accelerated by erosion of ponds’ edges and seasonal buildup of organic material such as dead plants and tree leaves, for instance. The nutrients in this material in turn often feed algal blooms that can produce toxins and kill fish, mammals and birds.

Dredging and removing sediments help prevent such buildup.

Separately, reshaping the edges of ponds that are artificially drained for agriculture can prevent too much water from escaping.

When efforts are made to enhance pond wildlife as a whole, the researchers found that not only do populations of endangered frogs, toads and newts increase but also flora benefits.

‘Biodiversity of aquatic plants increases significantly after cleaning up ponds,’ Brucet said.

Healthy ponds even play a role on another important environmental front: fighting climate change. That’s because they act as “carbon sinks” that store greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide.

Brucet’s project runs through November 2024 and signals that ponds, after long being disregarded by researchers and policymakers, are finally joining oceans and seas as a focus of Europe’s green ambitions.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “Clouds in the sky provide new clues to predicting climate change”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

3.8.23
MICHAEL ALLEN

While barely being given a second thought by most people, the masses of condensed water vapour floating in the atmosphere play a big role in global warming.

Predicting how much Earth’s climate will warm is vital to helping humankind prepare for the future. That in turn requires tackling a prime source of uncertainty in forecasting global warming: clouds.

Some clouds contribute to cooling by reflecting part of the Sun’s energy back into space. Others contribute to warming by acting like a blanket and trapping some of the energy of Earth’s surface, amplifying the greenhouse effect.

Puzzle pieces

‘Clouds interact very strongly with climate,’ said Dr Sandrine Bony, a climatologist and director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris.

They influence the structure of the atmosphere, impacting everything from temperature and humidity to atmospheric circulations.

And in turn the climate influences where and what types of clouds form, according to Bony, a lead author of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning assessment report in 2007 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

So many processes and feedback loops can affect climate change that it’s helpful to break down the issue into smaller parts.

‘Every time we manage to better understand one of the pieces, we decrease the uncertainty of the whole problem,’ said Bony, who coordinated the EU-funded EUREC4A project that ended last year.

A number of years ago, Bony and her colleagues discovered that small, fluffy clouds common in trade wind regions cause some of the largest levels of uncertainty in climate models. These clouds are known as trade cumulus.

While trade cumulus clouds are small and relatively unspectacular, they are numerous and very widely found in the tropics, according to Bony. Because there are so many of these clouds, what happens to them potentially has a huge impact on climate.

EUREC4A used drones, aircraft and satellites to observe trade cumulus clouds and their interactions with the atmosphere over the western Atlantic Ocean, near Barbados.

Many models assume that the structure and number of these clouds will change significantly as the global temperature warms, leading to possible feedback loops that amplify or dampen climate change. The models that project a strong reduction in such clouds as temperatures rise tend to predict a higher degree of global warming.

Good news

But Bony and her colleagues discovered that trade cumulus clouds change much less than expected as the atmosphere warms.

‘In a way, it is good news because a process that we thought could be responsible for a large amplification of global warming does not seem to exist,’ she said.

More importantly, it means that climatologists can now use models that more accurately represent the behavior of these clouds when predicting the effect of climate change.

Reducing this element of uncertainty in forecasts of the global extent of warming will make predictions of local impacts such as heatwaves in Europe more precise, according to Bony.

‘The increase in the frequency of heatwaves very much depends on the magnitude of global warming,’ she said. ‘And the magnitude of global warming depends very much on the response of clouds.’

Water and ice

Meanwhile, Professor Trude Storelvmo, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Oslo in Norway, has been exploring the processes inside a different type of cloud – mixed-phased clouds – to help improve climate models.

She is fascinated by how processes in clouds that occur on a tiny, micrometre scale can have such a big influence on global-scale atmospheric and climate processes.

Mixed-phase clouds contain both liquid water and ice and are responsible for the majority of rainfall across the globe. In recent years, it has become clear that they also play an important role in climate change.

Storelvmo coordinated the EU-funded MC2 project, which ran for five years until last month and unearthed new details about how mixed-phase clouds react to higher temperatures. The results highlight the urgency of transitioning to a low-carbon society.

The more liquid water that mixed-phased clouds contain, the more reflective they are. And by reflecting more radiation from the sun away from the Earth, they cool the atmosphere.

‘As the atmosphere warms, these clouds tend to shift away from ice and towards liquid,’ said Storelvmo. ‘What happens then is the clouds also become more reflective and they have a stronger cooling effect.’

Rude awakening

But some years ago, Storelvmo and colleagues discovered that most global climate models overestimate this effect. MC2 flew balloons into mixed-phase clouds and used remote sensing data from satellites to probe their structure and composition.

The researchers discovered that current climate models tend to make the mix of water and ice in mixed-phase clouds more uniform and less complex than in real clouds, leading to overestimations of the amount of ice in the clouds.

Because these model clouds have more ice to lose, when simulations warm them the shift in reflectiveness is greater than in real clouds, according to Storelvmo. This means the models overestimate the dampening effect that mixed-phase clouds have on climate change.

When the team plugged the more realistic cloud data into climate models and subjected it to simulated warming, they made another important finding: the increase in the reflectiveness of mixed-phased clouds weakens with warming.

While with moderate warming the dampening effect on higher temperatures is quite strong, this is no longer the case as warming intensifies.

There comes a point when the ice in the cloud has all melted and the cooling effect weakens – and then completely vanishes. Exactly when this starts to happen is a question for future research.

But, according to Storelvmo, this reinforces the need for urgent reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.

‘Our findings suggest that if we just let greenhouse-gas emissions continue, it won’t just be a linear and gradual warming – there could be a rapidly accelerating warming when you get to a certain point,’ she said. ‘We really need to avoid reaching that point at all costs.’

As new findings on clouds such as these are integrated into models, climate predictions used by policymakers will become more refined.

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “The mysterious black behemoths controlling our galaxies”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

2.13.23
Anthony King

The innermost rim of this gas disc is accreting onto a massive black hole. Credit: © Michela Mapelli.

Scientists try to unravel the birth and growth and power of black holes-some of the most forceful yet difficult-to-detect objects in our Universe.

It was only last year that astronomers were finally able to unveil the first pictures of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. But you couldn’t actually see the black hole itself, not directly. That’s because it is so dense that its gravitational pull prevents even light from escaping.

But the image of SGR A*, as our galaxy’s black hole is known, revealed a glowing halo of gas around the object – an object that we now know has a million times more mass than our Sun.

Recent discoveries like that, as well as many others, have astonished astronomers.

‘Over the last few years, everything we thought we knew about black holes now comes with a question mark,’ said Professor Michela Mapelli, an astrophysicist at the University of Padua in Italy.

Everyone has heard of black holes. Few people, though, realise just how much these weird objects continue to vex astronomers.

One black hole announced itself to astronomers last year when it shredded and then swallowed a star that had wandered too close. Another was described as the fastest-growing black hole ever observed, devouring the equivalent mass of one Earth every second. As a result, it’s already 3 billion times more massive than our Sun.

Cosmic minnows

Mapelli studies stellar black holes, which form when a large, fast-burning star collapses in on itself. Compared to the supermassive ones, these black holes are cosmic minnows.

Astronomers had expected such black holes to possess between five to 10 times the mass of our Sun.

But the truth is that these types of black hole come in a much wider range of sizes. In recent years, some have been discovered that are up to about 100 solar masses, as well as one as small as 2.6.

‘We have discovered features and a mass range of black holes that we could not even imagine before the recent observations,’ Mapelli said.

One system that intrigues her is known as binary black holes – where two orbit one another. This can happen when two stars that orbit each other both end their life as black holes.

Then again, there could be many other ways to form binary black holes and this is something that Mapelli studies in her DEMOBLACK project, funded by the European Research Council.

‘Seven years ago, most people were sceptical about the existence of binary black holes,’ she said. ‘Even theorists were not convinced about their existence.’

Now, Mapelli said, almost 100 of them have been discovered. They spew out gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that can be snagged by sophisticated detectors at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the US and Italy’s Virgo interferometer.

Caltech/MIT Advanced aLigo at Hanford, WA, Livingston, LA; and VIRGO Gravitational Wave interferometer, near Pisa(IT).

Most astrophysicists, according to Mapelli, doubted that two black holes could get intimate enough to merge, but then gravitational waves began signalling the collision of black holes. One peculiar merger event in 2019 happened between black holes 60 and 80 solar masses.

Whether these black holes formed directly from stars isn’t known. This is because the assumption that stellar-born black holes were between five and 10 solar masses has now been sunk.

‘There is a really big question mark over whether the maximum mass of a stellar black hole is just 60 solar masses, or could it be 90, or even 300?’ said Mapelli. ‘I feel guilty about this large uncertainty because I personally helped cause this situation.’

Galactic monsters

The biggest beasts lie at the centre of almost every galaxy. Nearly all are active, with gravity-sucking hot gas inside them. Some of these black holes have masses up to 10 billion times the mass of our Sun.

‘These are real monsters,’ said Professor Christopher Reynolds at the University of Cambridge in the UK. ‘Their influence in a galaxy can extend 100, even 200, light years out.’

Even at those astronomical distances, stars and galaxies still feel the gravitational tug of these black holes. But their energy blasts as they consume matter can be felt even farther out, as far as 100 000 light years or more.

In the EU-funded DISKtoHALO project, Reynolds is investigating how these supermassive black holes grow, suck hot gas inside them and generate explosions of energy outwards.

‘We know these black holes produce jets of energy, sending shocks outwards,’ he said.

One thing that astrophysicists haven’t been able to figure out yet is why gas in the core of some galaxies can be so hot – up to 10 to 100 million °C – yet the systems are billions of years old and therefore should have had plenty of time to cool down.

How the black holes interact with their immediate surroundings and distant parts of their galaxy is an extremely taxing conundrum. Computer models struggle to help because this requires insight into relatively small scales as well as ginormous scales measured in light years.

‘You are talking about something the size of a tennis ball regulating something that is Earth’s size,’ Reynolds said.

One way to study these supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxy clusters is to examine the hot gases in their vicinity. It is impossible to see these gases with a telescope, but their energy is observable via the X-rays they send out because they are so hot.

Again, it remains unknown why the hot gas doesn’t cool down and coalesce into stars.

‘You need a heater to send out energy in the middle of the cluster and the only heater powerful enough are supermassive black holes,’ Reynolds said.

How precisely this heater works continues to mystify him and his colleagues. It is clear, however, that supermassive black holes do not live tranquilly.

‘These black holes are not even spherical, but they spin themselves into a disc that is rife with instabilities,’ Reynolds said.

Despite new insights into these strange galactic creatures, the true nature of black holes remains obscure. Past assumptions have been shaken.

What we can be sure of is that black holes will continue to puzzle the brightest minds in astronomy.

Research in this article was funded via the EU’s European Research Council (ERC). If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

More information:

DEMOBLACK
DISKtoHALO

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “Olives-the source of “liquid gold”-offer more riches to unlock”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

1.13.23
Alex Whiting

Companies are finding promising ways to use the nutrient-filled residue from olive-oil production.

Only about 25% of an olive is used for the prized oil. Image credit: Lucio Patone on Unsplash.

Olive oil is a multibillion-euro global business and Manuel Román is determined to create an even bigger market from the sacred ancient fruit.

Román is co-founder of ISANATUR-a Spanish company that has built a refinery able to turn every part of an olive into a commercial product of some kind.

Pulp and pits

Only about 25% of an olive is used for the prized oil, with the remaining pulp, pits and water ending up in landfills or being turned into fertilizer. The pits can also be used for fuel.

‘What is needed is a market willing to use the products – the olive powder, olive water, olive seed,’ said Román, former coordinator of an EU-funded project developing ways to transform the entire residue into commercial goods.

Global annual production of olive oil totals about 3 million tonnes of which 2 million tonnes are in Europe. The worldwide olive oil market is worth nearly €13 billion, according to Fortune Business Insights.

While olive oil has been called ‘liquid gold’ for millennia because of its many health benefits the residue is also packed full of goodness.

Companies in Europe are developing ways to tap into this rich source of ingredients so they can be used in health and beauty products, food supplements and animal feed.

‘Thousands of tonnes of natural products are not being used and we are missing out on the opportunity to eat these healthy compounds,’ said Román.

He was interim coordinator of UP4HEALTH, which began in mid-2020 and is due to continue until end-May 2024. Run from Spain, Europe’s top producer of olive oil, the project brings together participants determined to end olive waste.

ISANATUR is already selling powder made from olive pulp – which is rich in iron, proteins and antioxidants – for use in snack bars and food supplements.

The overall potential is enormous. Other products include soluble fibre to boost digestive health, drinks made from olive water and fats that can be used as skin moisturizers.

Although UP4HEALTH includes several small and medium-sized food and nutraceutical businesses testing the products, it wants to attract large multinational companies that could create enough demand to scale.

One of the main obstacles to turning biowaste into new products is creating the demand and building the supply chains to meet it.

Leafy promises

Olive-tree leaves, which are normally left to rot in groves or burnt for energy, also have significant commercial potential.

A second EU-funded project coordinated from Spain, OLEAF4VALUE, has brought together scientists, multinational companies and olive farmers to develop uses for leaves in a range of products.

Olive leaves contain antioxidants, anti-inflammatories and antimicrobials, which – like olive-oil residue – could be used in food supplements, pharmaceuticals, beauty products and animal feed.

Currently only about 0.2% of the world’s residual olive leaves find commercial uses, according to OLEAF4VALUE.

The project wants to increase the level to 15% with the help of Oleícola El Tejar, a Spanish farm cooperative that already handles an equivalent percentage of the world’s supply of olive pulp, pits and leaves.

The project is working with Mibelle Biochemistry Switzerland, a multinational that designs ingredients for the beauty industry.

But inroads are also being made into other markets including feed, said José Maria Pinilla, coordinator of OLEAF4VALUE.

Healthier fish

Pinilla is project manager at Natac Group, which makes natural ingredients for food supplements, feed and pharmaceuticals.

Natac works with Norway-based Mowi, the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon.

The two companies have already successfully tested olive pulp ingredients in feed for fish to determine whether they protect salmon from bacterial infections. Trials so far – conducted at the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology in Spain – have found they make salmon more resilient to such contagion.

Now, as part of OLEAF4VALUE, Natac and Mowi are testing ingredients from the leaves to gauge whether they can protect fish from viral infections.

Trials are under way at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, Norway and should be completed by the end of 2023, according to Pinilla.

To break into the market for animal-feed additives economic efficiency is key.

‘If you want to enter that market, you need to be very, very cost competitive,’ said Pinilla.

Smarter sorting

To cut production costs in general, the project is developing a new way to extract the most value from the leaves.

With this technique, known as “dynamic processing,” each batch of leaves is processed differently according to its chemical content. OLEAF4VALUE researchers are creating a sensor that analyses the chemical composition of each batch.

The chemical content of leaves depends on where they grew and how they were handled before processing. The content determines the most suitable products for leaves.

For example, olive leaves contain oleuropein, which is used as a food supplement. Its content in leaves varies from 0.2% to 10%.

Currently, leaves are all processed in the same way and for the same purposes.

‘But if I want to produce a very high-purity oleuropein, it’s obviously much easier to do it with a high-content leaf at the beginning,’ said Pinilla.

With dynamic processing, only olive leaves with high oleuropein content are used to extract this compound. The rest are processed for different chemicals.

The project is also developing treatments to modify the chemical content of leaves so they contain higher concentrations of certain chemicals before processing begins.

Plenty of research is still needed for both the processes and the products. Then the challenge will be to find major buyers.

But Pinilla is certain about the merits of the whole initiative.

‘In theory we could have nothing to throw away,’ he said. ‘We are trying for a zero-waste approach.’

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From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine : “Fishing for answers – new technology onboard can help protect oceans”

From “Horizon” The EU Research and Innovation Magazine

1.10.23
ALI JONES

Digital advances will increase the sustainability of global fisheries and preserve marine ecosystems.

Off the rugged coastline of Iceland, five fishing vessels are part of a project to test a state-of-the-art machine for capturing information about the catch of the day. A first of its kind, the initiative aims to help meet the need for more detailed data on the state of our seas.

‘We’re living in a time of technology where everything is being scanned and registered in a database, but as far as I know it’s the first time for wild fish,’ said Axel Freyr Gíslason, head of product development at Skaginn 3X, developer of the scanning machine featuring computers and cameras. The Iceland-based company is part of the EU funded SEASCANN project.

Protecting marine ecosystems around the world is an increasingly pressing issue, which has been given new impetus by international sustainability and biodiversity goals agreed at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022.

On the one hand, the sea is a vital source of food for people and fishing is an economic activity that supports many coastal communities around Europe and the world. On the other hand, these resources are being widely overexploited and there is a real risk that certain species numbers could collapse or ecosystems be irreversibly damaged.

Clearer picture

Although some progress has been made since the reform of the EU Fisheries Policy in 2013, overfishing is a persistent threat, particularly in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Added to this are concerns about pollution and overall ecosystem health.

Run-off of chemicals and fertilisers from agricultural land, in particular, has led in certain areas to excessive nutrients in the water. This in turn has resulted in algae overgrowth that depletes oxygen levels and suffocates other marine life.

Gaining an accurate overview of all the factors that go into building a healthy marine ecosystem is vital. It is also challenging. This is where scientific knowledge has a crucial part to play: high-quality information is key to understanding the state of play and what actions will be the most effective in restoring ocean health.

The EU is supporting a variety of research projects aimed at harnessing new technologies to increase both the quality and the quantity of information available to scientists and policy makers.

Broader scope

Another such project is EcoScope, which started from the principle that every aspect of the marine ecosystem is interconnected. To date, efforts to preserve fish stocks have typically focused on managing species one by one, often placing a catch limit on a particular fish species if its numbers are too low.

EcoScope aims to establish a more comprehensive approach to fisheries management by tracking the health of the ecosystem as a whole.

The project involves 18 countries. Its partners include universities, research institutions, non-governmental organizations and tech companies. The EcoScope team is mapping a range of factors that can affect the health of fisheries, including changes to the environment, the status of other species and the impact of human activity.

The information collated is being made available through a single interoperable online platform that is also open to the general public.

Citizen reporters

One aspect of EcoScope seeks to harness the power of citizen science through a smartphone application.

The EcoScope app will allow people to report on concerns relating to the marine environment. Reports will be transferred directly to local authorities or the relevant port police, with GPS location, pictures and details depending on the incident.

Overall the information collated and mapped out by the project will provide an important resource to all those involved with the sea.

‘I feel very optimistic about the impact this project can have because, for a long time, lack of data has been an excuse for lack of action,’ said Tsikliras. ‘This excuse will not be there anymore.’

Making fisheries-related data available also supports the objectives of the Horizon Europe Mission to Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030. To meet the Mission’s goals, advanced systems are needed to better monitor, forecast and evaluate the health of the aquatic system as a whole.

Precision data

New technology also has a vital role in gathering accurate information at source. SEASCANN’s testing of the first fully automatic grading system off the coast of Iceland is a case in point.

Fish pass through the SEASCANN machine, which makes a digital record of their size, colour, quality and species. It sends the information in real-time to the onboard crew as well as onshore for analysis by fishery teams and organisations that monitor fishing activities.

The precision automation offered by SEASCANN is a world away from the conventional time-consuming task of manually sorting through fishing nets and takes fishing traceability to new levels.

The technology relies on machine learning, developed over several years spent teaching the system to recognise different species. Because the equipment is located on the deck of a boat, battling the elements, other technical challenges had to be addressed.

‘Most of the components – the computers, high-definition cameras and other items – are not designed to work in a densely humidified and highly saline atmosphere,’ said Gíslason. ‘We’ve had to think outside the box to find ways to overcome the elements, to develop technology that recognises the fish in all conditions.’

By investing in new technologies and data tools, projects like SEASCANN and EcoScope hope to give decision makers the knowledge they need to design policies that foster greater ecosystem-based management.

As a result, these initiatives improve the chances of maintaining the delicate balance between food security and a healthy ocean well into the future.

Follow the links below to learn more about the EU-funded projects featured in this article.

EcoScope
SEASCANN

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