Title: smaRt Online Multisensory systEm for microplastic quantificatiOn and water quality assessment
Abstract:
ROMEO is a low-cost and open multi-sensory system that monitors and digitizes our aquatic ecosystems to understand their state, ecological health and functioning, with the concept of any sensor, anytime, anywhere. It is made of multisensory system that perceive and reason about underwater abiotic and biotic conditions of our critical natural resources by building a digital aquatic world that understands the considered ecosystem conditions and forecasts their evolutions.
The ROMEO multi-sensory system will address knowledge gaps for cross-aquatic basins information exchange. This proposal will establish an aquatic-basins database on several standard environmental parameters, and with novel and innovative online sensors for micro-plastics/diatoms, to act on policies of “Restore our Oceans and Waters” lighthouse initiatives. It will integrate and enrich the Copernicus service with a new monitoring scheme that includes new sensing technologies, allowing anyone to use data: scientists, policymakers, entrepreneurs and citizens. Further, it fully complies with the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, for preserving the marine environment, since it represents a sentinel of human activities with a sustainable use of multi-sensor carrier. All the acquired data will be ingested into an open database engine, which will provide a coherent, multivariable and multi-dimensional description of the aquatic environment, biodiversity and populations/resources dynamics, from inland and transitional to coastal water, from marine physics to ice to biogeochemistry, from the surface to deep water, allowing a digital exploration in time and space of the aquatic ecosystems accordingly.
The open database and platform will give all stakeholders the power to make informed decisions, backed by science and data, to monitor and implement the conservation strategies and restore the aquatic habitats, support a sustainable blue economy and mitigate and adapt to climate change.