FORCOAST

Project Acronym: FORCOAST
Project Title: Earth Observation services for wild fisheries, oysterground restoration and bivalve mariculture along European coasts
Funding Programme: Horizon 2020
Total Budget: €2.28 million
Duration: November 2019 – April 2022
No. of Partners: 21 (Belgian, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Ireland, Denmark, Italy,
Coordinator: Stichting Deltares, Netherlands
Website: www.forcoast.eu

Past

Project Aim: The FORCOAST project is funded under the H2020 space call, which seeks to foster market development exploiting the value of Copernicus Earth Observation Products. FORCOAST aims to provide information services that offer high resolution water quality and met-ocean indicators in coastal and nearshore areas, to improve operation, planning and management of different marine activities in the sectors of wild fisheries, oystergrounds restoration, and bivalve mariculture. FORCOAST information products and services will be co-designed with stakeholders, thereby ensuring that these products and services are tailored to meet their needs.

The Marine Institute’s main role is to develop ocean modelling services in support of native oyster restoration and bivalve mariculture in inner Galway Bay. The existing numerical model “Connemara” will be downscaled further to provide high resolution coverage of the pilot site. Further datasets from Copernicus, ESA, EUMETSAT and local in-situ measurements will be collated and included in the online platform along with the model outputs. The Marine Institute works closely with Cuan Beo, a local NGO, and will work with other stakeholders to define the requirements and co-develop this service. The parameters of interest include forecasts of physical (e.g. temperature and salinity), biogeochemical (e.g. chlorophyll) and water quality (e.g. coliforms) parameters.