The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) has successfully completed a year of monitoring physicochemical variables and current regimes off the coast of Tenerife, as a fundamental part of its participation in the European OCEAN CITIZEN project, marking a significant advance within this project focused on Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) research and marine forest restoration.
This was one of the aspects addressed during the second annual OCEAN CITIZEN meeting, which recently took place in Barcelona, with PLOCAN’s participation. The meeting fostered the project’s momentum and focus, offering a comprehensive view of the progress achieved by all partners over the past year and anticipating the next phases of the initiative related to implementation and consensus protocols for the monitoring program.
The Ocean Citizen project, funded by the European Union through the Horizon Europe program with over 10 million euros, is an innovative initiative that seeks to restore marine forests by combining environmental perspectives with social commitment and economic benefits for local communities.
Ocean Citizen applies new eco-engineering techniques, including IMTA and Smart Enhanced Reefs (SER) to restore various types of marine forests in underwater environments.
The project will run for four years (2023-2027) and involves twenty-one partners from ten European countries, including PLOCAN, which is a key member of the project, contributing its expertise and technological resources.
Specifically, PLOCAN provides a sensor system to monitor the physicochemical characteristics of the water column and biodiversity off the coast of Tenerife, where actions for marine forest restoration are being carried out, including the implementation of an IMTA system and the installation of SERs, among other techniques.
The system provided by PLOCAN consists of state-of-the-art sensors to observe various oceanographic variables (EOVs). Specifically, data on conductivity, temperature, currents, nutrient concentration, chlorophyll, ocean sound, and images are collected.
The Canary Islands play a relevant role in the Ocean Citizen project, serving as one of the five test study areas for the developed restoration tools.
PLOCAN and the Canary Islands’ participation in this initiative not only contributes to scientific advancement in marine ecosystem restoration but also positions the region as a center for innovation in marine technologies and ocean conservation.
During this second meeting held in Barcelona, the importance of interdisciplinarity and the diversity of the countries involved in the project was highlighted, favoring a scalable and replicable protocol for coastal restoration and conservation.