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Description
Traditional water monitoring technology requires a high human intervention regarding sensor operations and maintenance which normally leads to low quality of data sets. This operation will bring to the market a new service/product for the aquaculture sector that will enable the development of a more effective and sustainable fish farming sector. The new service model allows aquaculture producers to monitor and predict water quality changes without dealing with sensor maintenance. Among other features, users will have access to predictions about temperature and dissolved oxygen for the upcoming days and early warnings via SMS or email about possible severe oxygen depletion or algae bloom events. A new ´FerryBox´ device will be developed with integration of water quality sensors based on farm needs and a 6-month pilot and proof of concept will be implemented in an aquaculture facility in Norway. The main expected results from the operation are: The downtime period of in-situ data acquisition should be less than 10% of the total operation hours. The sensor maintenance frequency of the in-situ data acquisition must be at least above 3 months, maintaining the quality of data sets. 3D High resolution model calibrated and validated for the pilot area. Water quality forecasts with a least 72h anticipation. The project will benefit from the experience and knowledge from the partner Técnico de Lisboa - IST within the implementation of MOHID numerical models to simulate hydrodynamic processes. The partner from the Donor State, The Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) will contribute with the testing of the new ´FerryBox´ device and with the operationalization and validation of the numerical models to be implemented on the pilot area.
Summary of project results
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.
To achieve this main objective some crutial activities were made:1. Development of new UNDERSEE Ferrybox version: 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. 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.2. Benchmark study with the ferrybox 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 at https://undersee.io/precisaqua/3. Ocean prediction tasks 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 insitu 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.4. Development of the 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).
From the overall project we can also include important results to the company:• The positive feedback on the SeaForecast service made possible to enter into a negotiation phase with Norwegian, Chilean, Paraguayan and Portuguese aquaculturists to sell the service.• In the meantime it was possible to close a contract of a ferrybox renting to AZTI (Spanish research institute) that was supported by the quality demonstrated at NIVA’s falities.• In 4–9 June 2023 UNDERSEE will participate together with NIVA in ASLO conference, presenting the work done with the ferrybox
Summary of bilateral results
The partnership with NIVA benefied the project in several aspects: NIVA is the excellence in ferrybox design and manufacturing. Their feedback and positive insights about what should be done in our equipment were great to achieve a more reliable product. The benchmark report is now a document that we can always use to convince our clients of the quality of our ferrybox equipment, as well as understand what we must change in the equipment to get better results. By having the NIVA’s seal of quality of our ferrybox, we were able to close new contracts to the commercialisation of the product. Norway is naturally a place were we have to sell if our client is aquaculture. NIVA helped us to reach new potential customers as they are a well known entity in that country. The relationship with NIVA is growing beyond the project. We are currently preparing a presentation for ASLO conference (4-9 June 2023) that shows the work we done together with the ferrybox equipment.