Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SMARTLAGOON (Innovative modelling approaches for predicting Socio-environMentAl evolution in highly anthRopized coasTal LAGOONs)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-01-01 al 2024-12-31
Coastal lagoons are among the most productive ecosystems on the planet, being ecosystems with great environmental and socioeconomic value. However, these natural systems are especially vulnerable to climatic and anthropogenic pressures, such as intensive agriculture and urbanization pressures because of the tourist development. Despite the vulnerability and complexity of these ecosystems, there has been limited development of solution-oriented tools integrating advanced sensor research, artificial intelligence, and socio-environmental inter-relationships modelling for efficient creation of dynamic models to restore, preserve and manage their environmental sustainability. We propose to develop an integrated approach that couples novel artificial intelligence-based sensing technologies to an efficient IoT infrastructure as input data to innovative modelling of socio-environmental dynamic models to forecast short and long-term changes in lagoon state and thus inform management decisions to safeguard the ecosystem services that coastal lagoons provide. As a case study, this project focuses on Europe’s largest saltwater coastal lagoon, Mar Menor lagoon, which has suffered serious environmental degradation, and where the need for not only monitoring but also new modelling approaches are needed to support management is great, but where the availability of conventional monitoring is sparse. The project consortium includes expertise from different European countries that have been involved in the forefront of IoT infrastructure design, a state-of-the-art video based monitoring which can be fed by citizen science projects, increasing local and citizen awareness of environmental impacts, expertise in hydrologic and hydrodynamic modelling using not only physically-based approaches but also machine learning techniques, and expertise in modelling the interplay dynamics of natural and societal systems. This project promotes innovative techniques based on low-cost monitoring for creating and using improved dynamics models that can be adapted to different coastal lagoons across Europe. Additionally, to increase the project impact, we engage different stakeholders (including NGOs, Tourist associations, and Fisherman associations) and everyday citizens (including children and teenagers) in several workshops to collect data to feed our digital twin and, at the same time, increase their awareness about the Mar Menor ecological crisis.
All scheduled tasks have been carried out according to the proposed timetable. In summary, it can be highlighted that the different sensors planned have been deployed, including the smart boy, cameras and Social Sensing monitoring and intensive work had been carried out on the development of the models, achieving a good reproduction through the models of the hydrological processes affecting the drainage basins of both the Erken Lake and the Mar Menor. Additionally, several workshops have been carried out engaging different stakeholders (farmers, tourists’ association, fishermen, etc.), collecting data used for environmental participatory modeling.
All the data sources were collected in the digital twin, a platform freely available for decision-makers, to query the historical data and visualize forecasted data.
To disseminate the results, several events have been organized, engaging the public, the scientific community, and the policy-makers at different levels (local, regional and national).
All the data sources were collected in the digital twin, a platform freely available for decision-makers, to query the historical data and visualize forecasted data.
To disseminate the results, several events have been organized, engaging the public, the scientific community, and the policy-makers at different levels (local, regional and national).
SMARTLAGOON approach relies on the holistic view of the coastal lagoon ecosystems. Developing a data-centric technology solution provides real-time monitoring and forecasting of socio-environmental tradeoffs in these ecosystems, aimed at helping policymakers in their decision-making. It also enables to increase people’s awareness of these tradeoffs, which will benefit the understanding and enforcement of applicable legislation (e.g. EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), RD 2/2019, December 26th, Integral Protection of the Mar Menor). In contrast to many scientific papers and reports which highlight the use of Artificial Intelligence for environmental or socio-economic modelling, SMARTLAGOON, through its conceptual approach, goes one step further by developing an integrative tool to assist in the decision-making process in such complex scenarios. Expected results until the end of the project were: (1) Improved and new approaches for monitoring, analysis and management of a critical resource under complex socio-environmental dynamics; (2) Reliable data and models at multiple levels of granularity needed for environmental policy making; (3) Reduced environmental footprint of the IoT infrastructures through smart data management which will reduce the overall energy consumption of the AI-based workloads required for developing reliable models; (4) Increased local and citizen awareness of environmental impacts; (5) Expanding the client portfolio of the SMEs involved in this project; and (6) Integrated scientific support for relevant EU policies. All these expected results were achieved.
The deterioration in the quality of the waters of the Mar Menor has led to the recent approval of Law 3/2020 on the restoration and protection of Mar Menor. This law establishes a series of mandatory measures which, according to the agricultural sector, will cost 500 million euros. These measures vary depending on the distance to the Mar Menor and are mainly based on the reduction of the amount of fertilizer and the implementation of best management practices, however, the effectiveness of these measures has not yet been evaluated. Such an evaluation is one of the tasks planned in the project and makes it possible to prioritize between the proposed measures. The relevance of the results obtained in SMARTLAGOON is also demonstrated by the collaborations established with the Spanish Ministry of Science to ensure that the SMARTLAGOON infrastructures deployed in the Mar Menor can be used beyond the lifetime of the project.
The deterioration in the quality of the waters of the Mar Menor has led to the recent approval of Law 3/2020 on the restoration and protection of Mar Menor. This law establishes a series of mandatory measures which, according to the agricultural sector, will cost 500 million euros. These measures vary depending on the distance to the Mar Menor and are mainly based on the reduction of the amount of fertilizer and the implementation of best management practices, however, the effectiveness of these measures has not yet been evaluated. Such an evaluation is one of the tasks planned in the project and makes it possible to prioritize between the proposed measures. The relevance of the results obtained in SMARTLAGOON is also demonstrated by the collaborations established with the Spanish Ministry of Science to ensure that the SMARTLAGOON infrastructures deployed in the Mar Menor can be used beyond the lifetime of the project.