The Blue Economy Working Group (GEA) driven by the Canary Island Government Research, Innovation and Information Society Agency (ACIISI) to promote growth of the blue economy, one of the priority sectors of the Canary Island Smart Specialisation Strategy (RIS3), held its first working meeting with the presence of the Canary Island Government Minister of Economy, Industry, Trade and Knowledge, Pedro Ortega.
The Macaronesia Marine Maritime Observation Network (R3M) rolled out a new autonomous measuring device this week in the Cape Verde archipelago. It is an IMU oceanographic station (Integral Measurement Unit) that has been installed in Mindelo Bay (island of Sao Vicente). This was developed and brought on line by PLOCAN technical staff, with the collaboration of the National Fisheries Development Institute (INDP) as part of the ECOMARPORT project.
The IMU device, located in the Mindelo Yacht Marina facilities, comprises a specific array of cutting-edge oceanographic sensors aimed at continually measuring essential sea-water variables like temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen and turbidity. The recorded data is made available every hour, along with the other data acquired by existing devices installed in the four archipelagos of Macaronesia, over the PLOCAN data portal that can be accessed from the web R3M.
PLOCAN took part in the iFADO (Innovation in the Framework of the Atlantic Deep Ocean) project launch meeting to create regional and sub-regional marine services using the waters of the Atlantic Space as a practical case, held on the 14th and 15th of November in the Conference Centre of the Lisbon University Higher Technical Institute, the institution leading the project.
The opening of the Mindelo Marine Sciences Centre (OSCM) on the island of Sao Vicente (Cape Verde) by the German Helmholtz Centre for Oceanic Research (GEOMAR) in co-operation with the Cape Verde Fisheries Development Institute (INDP), hosted the International Workshop on Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, which attracted over one hundred delegates working in atmospheric scientific-technical disciplines from Europe, Africa, USA and Canada.
The workshop agenda included specific thematic sessions on Atlantic observatories, blue growth, the Macaronesian perspective and an annual co-ordination and monitoring meeting for ICAWA (Eco-systemic Approach to Fisheries and Marine Environment in West African Waters), PREFACE (Improve Tropical Climate Prediction in the Atlantic and its Impacts) and POGO (Association for Global Ocean Observation) initiatives.
