Litter Windrows in the South-East Coast of the Bay of Biscay: An Ocean Process Enabling Effective Active Fishing for Litter

Large scale convergence regions of floating marine litter are commonly observed in semi-enclosed seas as the Bay of Biscay. However, clean-up activities on such accumulation regions are limited by the spread of the large-size floating litter on the sea surface. Data gathered by a small-scale fishing vessel devoted to active fishing for floating litter activities during the spring and summer of 2018 reveals that the linear streaks of high concentration of floating litter (so-called litter "windrows") are common accumulation structures in the south-east coast of the Bay of Biscay. The random search of litter windrows for their collection through surface tows of macro-nets was proved to be an effective action for floating litter mitigation. A total of 196 tows collected 16.2 tons of floating marine litter in 68 working days. Most of the litter windrows were around 1 km length and, on average, accumulated 77.75 kg of floating marine litter. Fishing, shipping and aquaculture sectors were the source of 35% of the 4,130 litter items analyzed (55% in weight of the sourced items), and plastic was the most common type of material (96% in terms of items). A better understanding of the phenomenon of the litter windrows, capable to guide clean-up efforts in space and time, would provide a considerable improvement in the efficiency of mitigation actions to reduce the marine litter pollution. The observations of litter windrows in the coastal area of the south-east of the Bay of Biscay demonstrate the key role of submesoscale processes in the distribution of FML. The present work provides a thorough description of floating litter windrows in nature, which it was non-existent to date. The results are the kind of proof necessary to boost the research addressed on the submesoscale aggregations of FML. Coupling litter windrows observations with remote-sensing technology and high-resolution modeling techniques offer great opportunities for the mitigation actions against marine litter

ANTEIA System: cost-effective solution for extense wave monitoring

Bearing in mind the growing importance of reliable temporal data series for scientific surveys and monitoring related to climate change and extreme events, among other things, the ANTEIA System was developed as a cost-effective solution and service to measure ocean surface waves, available to the scientific world. In this sense, ANTEIA System has some specific advantages which include its light weight (26kg), its diameter (0.6m) and its solar powered rechargeable battery. It also offers real time data visualization via website and app, bespoke mooring design for each site and tried-and-tested reliability, which will be shown in the comparative section of this paper.Peer Reviewe

A novel and multi-purpose ASV for the Basque Coast: design, experimental testing, and main challenges

Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) have become a powerful tool for marine research due to their capability to make observations over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. ASVs provide accurate, high-resolution, continuous data, benefiting environmental monitoring by decreasing the costs when compared to fully manned vessels. In the framework of Oarsoaldea Blue Hub project, a 6 m length electrical ASV equipped with acoustic sensors for measuring water currents and fish biomass has been designed and developed as a solution for more efficient oceanographic observations in the coastal area.Peer Reviewe

European High Frequency Radar network governance

This report describes the governance of the European HF radar network including: the landscape of the Ocean observation networks and infrastructures, the role and links between operators of observational systems and stakeholders, the role and activities of the EuroGOOS HF radar Task Team in building a sound community strategy, the roadmap of the community with current achievements and future work lines

Development of Coastal Marine Services for Tackling Coastal Risks in the Atlantic Area: the value of regional cooperation

The MyCOAST project (http://mycoast-project.org/) is an INTERREG Atlantic Area project designed to demonstrate that marine services for tackling coastal risks can be jointly developed. The main innovation and originality of the project stems from the implementation of transferable tools able to improve the risk management systems operated in the Atlantic Area. A successful outcome was achieved by identifying mature existing tools and selecting those that could be further developed by partners during the project duration. Demonstration of the tools in pilot actions showed that they are effective in supporting end users and relocatable among different regions in the Atlantic Area.Le projet MyCOAST (http://mycoast-project.org/) est un projet INTERREG de l'Espace Atlantique destiné à démontrer que les services maritimes pour faire face aux risques côtiers peuvent être développés conjointement. La principale innovation et originalité du projet réside dans la mise en œuvre d'outils transférables capables d'améliorer les systèmes de gestion des risques exploités dans l'Espace Atlantique. L'identification d'outils matures existants et la sélection de ceux qui pourraient être développés par les partenaires pendant la durée du projet ont permis d'atteindre un résultat positif. La démonstration des outils dans des actions pilotes a montré qu'ils sont efficaces pour soutenir les utilisateurs finaux et qu'ils peuvent être transférés dans différentes régions de l'Espace Atlantique.En prens

NaIrO3 - A pentavalent post-perovskite

Sodium iridium(V) oxide, NaIrO3, was synthesized by a high pressure solid state method and recovered to ambient conditions. It is found to be isostructural with CaIrO3, the much-studied structural analogue of the high-pressure post-perovskite phase of MgSiO3. Among the oxide post-perovskites, NaIrO3 is the first example with a pentavalent cation. The structure consists of layers of corner- and edge-sharing IrO6 octahedra separated by layers of NaO8 bicapped trigonal prisms. NaIrO3 shows no magnetic ordering and resistivity measurements show non-metallic behavior. The crystal structure, electrical and magnetic properties are discussed and compared to known post-perovskites and pentavalent perovskite metal oxides.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Journal of Solid State Chemistr

Mathematical Modeling of Oscillating Water Columns Wave-Structure Interaction in Ocean Energy Plants

Oscillating Water Column (OWC)-based power take-off systems are one of the potential solutions to the current energy problems arising from the use of nuclear fission and the consumption of fossil fuels. This kind of energy converter turns wave energy into electric power by means of three different stages: firstly wave energy is transformed into pneumatic energy in the OWC chamber, and then a turbine turns it into mechanical energy and finally the turbogenerator module attached to the turbine creates electric power from the rotational mechanical energy. To date, capture chambers have been the least studied part. In this context, this paper presents an analytical model describing the dynamic behavior of the capture chamber, encompassing the wave motion and its interaction with the OWC structure and turbogenerator module. The model is tested for the case of the Mutriku wave power plant by means of experimental results. For this purpose, representative case studies are selected from wave and pressure drop input-output data. The results show an excellent matching rate between the values predicted by the model and the experimental measured data with a small bounded error in all cases, so that the validity of the proposed model is proven

DEVELOP EUROGOOS MARINE CLIMATE SERVICE WITH A SEAMLESS EARTH SYSTEM APPROACH

The ocean is an important pathway to a low-carbon and climate resilient society, e.g. in areas of blue carbon, green shipping, offshore renewable energy, aquaculture, fi shery and coastal adaptation. Currently, 26 EU member states have made their National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) and/or National Strategy Plan (NAP) which needs a strong climate information service. European Global Ocean Observing System (EuroGOOS) has a strategy to expand existing operational marine service to climate change in 2020-2030. As focal points of national marine, climate and/or weather services, ROOS (Regional Sea Operational Oceanographic System) members have extensive experiences in working with citizens, stakeholders and decision-makers at national, regional and municipality levels. This paper will review current marine climate service capacity in ROOS members, identify gaps in modelling, products and service, and propose a seamless earth system approach for developing EuroGOOS and ROOS marine climate service capacities.Versión del edito