PLOCAN hosted the final meeting of the research project into Multinational Preparedness and Response to Hydrocarbon and Chemical Spills (MARPOCS) in the Atlantic sub-region encompassing Morocco, Madeira and the Canary Islands.

The MARPOCS Project, co-funded by the European Union as part of the DG-ECHO Civil Protection Mechanism is to cover the need for regional co-operation in the North-East Atlantic to fight marine pollution, highlighted previously due to several major accidents that have occurred off both the coasts of Spain and the coasts of Morocco, France and Portugal. The Lisbon Accord, ratified in 2014 by the aforementioned countries and by the European Union, envisages co-operation in the event of environmental accidents.

The meeting was attended by the Higher Technical Institute (Instituto Superior Técnico – IST, Portugal), which is co-ordinating the project, Action Modulers (Portugal, now part of the Bentley Systems Group), Centre of Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Accidental Water Pollution - CEDRE (France), The Regional Agency for Research, Technology of Portugal (ARDITI), the Canary Island Oceanic Platform, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with the help of the Parque Científico Tecnológico Foundation and the Institut National de Recherche Halieutique - INRH (Morocco).

The cross-border strategies to deal with marine pollution from hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) and especially from oil spills have been developed in several regions under international agreements and EU R+D+i projects. However, the Atlantic sub-region encompassing Morocco and the central region of Macaronesia, Madeira and the Canary Islands, has not been covered in a similar fashion.

Based on the previous efforts of the EU and pursuant to parallel international protocols (OPRC-HNS etc.), strategies and recent R+D+i initiatives from this institution, MARPOCS promotes a common operational framework, with cutting edge tools to help in decision-making based on models and exercises for HNS and oil spills, adapted to the region and resting on cross-border co-operation and the implementation and training of local, regional and international authorities.

PLOCAN and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria have provided basic information and meteorological-oceanographic measurements of the area of the Canary Islands, which are essential for calibrating and adjusting prediction models in the area. They have also provided and adapted information for vulnerability maps, which are needed to assess the areas that could be at risk of oil and chemical spills.