The surrounding waters the new lava deltas on the coast of Tazacorte (La Palma island) keeps hosting diverse studies of different scope by the national and international scientific community, which represents and converts this area into a natural laboratory of unique characteristics for the development and application of ocean sciences and technologies, the context in which the DELTA project takes place in order to create models for the conservation and sustainable management of the ecosystem.
DELTA is a comprehensive initiative focused on the observation and management of the marine ecosystem affected by the 2021 volcanic eruption on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) whose objective is to connect science, technology and the Blue Economy to promote sustainable management, employment and informed governance on the island of La Palma.
Among the activities that DELTA considers in its roadmap, a program to monitor and control the evolution of the ecosystems associated with the new lava deltas is included, which is also supported by PLOCAN’s VIMAS fleet through periodic missions, such as the recent ones and satisfactorily completed DELTA2024_1 and DELTA2024_2. These systematic missions based on the use of autonomous unmanned vehicles (glider and USV) enables to increase monitoring capacity while providing continuity in an efficient and sustainable way to the time series of the set of observations that DELTA plans to carry out.
For the glider missions undertaken to date, a Slocum G2 glider unit has been used, suited with a scientific payload that has enabled to collect more than one million data on each of the five biogeochemical parameters of seawater observed (temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll and turbidity) through sequential dives every three hours at a depth of one thousand meters over a month-long duration (two weeks each mission), all in line with current international standards and methodologies related to observation of the ocean environment through these cutting-edge robotic systems.
The DELTA project initiative, coordinated from the headquarters of the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), seeks to collect data, analyze environmental variables, establish observation systems and create models for the conservation and sustainable management of the ecosystem. The multidisciplinary data collected is aimed at sustainable management based on scientific knowledge required to improve the governance of the area. The initiative contributes and demonstrates the relationship between environmental observation and its direct application in the creation of products and services in the field of the Blue Economy, as well as the promotion of sustainable employment and effective mechanisms for preserving biodiversity. The project is financed by the Department of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands and the Secretary of State for the Environment of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
More information at PLOCAN Glider Portal.
