Description
European aquaculture needs to sustainably boost its harvest to supply an increasing seafood demand. There is a lack of cost effective, non-invasive, user-friendly methods to detect and monitor novel and unexpected environmental stressors and contaminants and fish welfare. The main objective of the project is to evaluate the feasibility of implementing fish and environmental monitoring systems, as biological systems, within intelligent aquaculture structures. Partners will examine how to combine the mathematical models used for the design of the physical structures produced by donor partner with the needs for data acquisition and interpretation of the effects of the environment on the fish behavior. The results will benefit the scientist community. Project promoter, University of the Basque Country is an expert in systems engineering, biological systems and the response of marine organisms to environmental stressors and donor partner has a wide experience on the design and modelling of intelligent aquaculture structures in challenging marine settings.
Summary of project results
Main aims of the project were: 1) to evaluate the feasibility of implementing fish and environmental monitoring systems, as biological systems, within intelligent aquaculture structures. The Centre for Autonomous marine Operation and Systems (AMOS) of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is considered the best European centre in this field and an optimal partner to carry out the evaluation. The second aim 2) was the identification of synergies and complementarities between the Research Centre for Experimental Marine Biology and Biotechnology (PiE) of the University of Basque Country and AMOS in order to establish a long term collaboration for the exchange of scientific personnel and students, towards preparing common research proposals and papers to help the research communities, funding organizations and the industry to establish priortiy research and action lines. The scientific work carried out focused on two fields. The first one targeted the construction of a mathematical model focused in prediction with the aim of establishing a model of the basal or normal activity pattern of the fish suitable to be confronted with real-world data in order to detect deviations in altered patterns, which could be indicators of stressors affecting the fish. The model has been built during the stay at AMOS with data acquired previously. It will be included in the PhD thesis of the grantee and results shall be published in an international journal. The second goal focused learning the State of the Art in marine autonomous operations and systems in order to find opportunities to implement fish monitoring systems in real aquaculture facilities. Various meeting were held with different actors in the marine and aquaculture sectors of Norway. In this context, the main aim is to collaborate with such actors in applications to the European funds within topics related to the multi-use of the marine space and smart fisheries and aquaculture technologies for an efficient, compliant and environmentally friendly fishing sector.
Summary of bilateral results
Both the Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems (AMOS) of the NTNU and SINTEF have agreed to build a consortium with the Research Centre for Experimental Marine Biology and Biotechnology (PiE) of the University of Basque Country, with the aim to submit joint research proposals to the European H2020 programme. Partners are preparing two joint research papers and intend to continue visiting each other. The institutions involved are complementary: PiE is expert in systems engineering, biological systems and the response of marine organism to environmental stressors, and AMOS excels on the design and modelling of intelligent aquaculture structures in challenging marine settings. The research activities complement each other and the outcome of integrating both lines may show important synergies. The partnership had a high impact in the achievement of the goals of the project. It has been essential in order to get knowledge on the current state of the art and the most modern research lines and trends in marine autonomous operations and systems. In particular, the implementation of a BMCS in aquaculture that PiE is preparing will be much easier using the approaches, technologies and structures that are being developed at AMOS.