The first sea trials of the H2020 IMPRESSIVE project (“Integrated Marine Pollution Risk assessment and Emergency management Support Service In ports and coastal enVironmEnts”) were successfully accomplished in Gran Canaria on last Saturday 7th November 2020. The operation was a coordinated activity between the ULPGC and the Canarian company elittoral, both of them partners of the project´s international consortium.

The aim of the sea trials was to test the functioning of two of the monitoring systems, namely a drone and a marine autonomous surface vehicle (ASV), which are being developed by the two partners in the context of the project. In this sense, a spill simulation was produced with rhodamine (a water tracer dye) in the surroundings of Juan Grande power plant. Next, a total of three drone flights and several ASV passes were made across the testing area. Specific sensors have been integrated to match IMPRESSIVE´s objectives, such as a high resolution hyperspectral camera on board the drone and several marine sensors (fluorimeter and turbidity sensor) on board the ASV.

 

 

Dron with hyperspectral camera and aerial RGB composite with spectral profile detected (source: elittoral).

IMPRESSIVE´s final goal is to combine EO monitoring, robotics and advanced numerical modelling in order to develop an integrated, universal and replicable system, based on CMEMS (Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, http://marine.copernicus.eu/) products, for real time management of marine pollution events in the wider area of EU harbors and their vicinities. The final product will be complemented with an action protocol and will be tested & validated as an operational pilot in the ports of Las Palmas (Spain), Taranto (Italy) and Rafina (Greece).

Project Website: http://impressive-project.eu