Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Mission 4th “Instruction and Research”,Component 2 “From the research to the business”, Investment 1.4
Supported within National biodiversity future Center (NBFC)
Project title: Visual and nOise-eNhanced AI Analysis for Marine Biodiversity MonitorinG, Observation and LeArning (VONGOLA)
Project total cost: € 1.030.187,50 – NOEL-UNIRC cost: € 168.168,75
Partners: Centro Siciliano di Fisica Nucleare di Fisica Nucleare e di struttura della Materia (CSFNSM), University of Catania, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Nadir Byte SRL
From 22/07/2024 to 31/10/2025
The NOEL activities within the VONGOLA project include numerical and experimental analyses on the effects of environmental and anthropogenic stressors on marine life, with particular emphasis on monitoring and analysing mussels, algae, and/or limpet dislodgement from reefs and from ropes in aquaculture settings. In this context, a longline floating offshore mussel farm prototype has been tested at sea at the NOEL laboratory. In detail, 11 ropes (length: 3 m, diameter: 17 cm) of Mytilus Galloprovincialis have been suspended from a horizontal headline, tensioned between two floating supports (spar), to represent the integration of the mussel farm with a floating offshore wind farm. Variable ropes spacing has been set, to study the favourable and/or unfavourable interactions in terms of nutrient quantity dispersion (chlorophyll) and impacts. During the experiment, several phenomena have been observed and measured, including: the rope dynamics (n.2 load cells, n.2 inclinometers); the pressures in different points of a floating support (n.18 transducers); the floating support motions; several water quality parameters (pressure, temperature, conductivity and salinity, sound velocity, dissolved oxygen, pH, chlorophyll, through n.2 multiparametric probes); the environmental stressors (n.1 fixed wave station, n.2 current velocity profilers); the mussel growth level in time (sampling periodically the mussel dimensions).
