Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PHAROS (Lighthouse for Atlantic and Arctic Basin)
Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2025-08-31
Context: PHAROS follows the 3 Ocean Mission objectives:
1. (Mission Obj. 1); protecting and restoring marine ecosystems and biodiversity
2. (Mission Obj. 2); preventing and eliminating pollution of our ocean
3. (Mission Obj. 3): making the sustainable blue economy carbon-neutral and circular by 2030.
PHAROS Objective 1: Citizen and other stakeholder engagement and co-creation - For all objectives, citizen and other relevant stakeholder engagement will occur through local Living Labs from the start and throughout. This will ensure the specific Mission societal challenges are tackled with the project systemic solutions, leading to societal transformations and social impact. Linking and leveraging with RRING and GRRIP project and Communities.
Objective 2: Highly innovative Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for ecosystem and biodiversity restoration. PHAROS will demonstrate Integrated multitrophic and reef habitat restoration in 3 demo sites in the EU OM islands, and produce Replication plans for associated regions.
PHAROS Objective 3: A specific Arctic focus, recognising its growing and urgent importance due to its vulnerability to external stressors including global warming and pollution – extending the ECOTIP project relating to invasive species using eDNA monitoring, consisting of one demo and Replication plans.
PHAROS Objective 4: Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and Ecological corridors management – Cooperating with the BLUE4ALL project in extending the Blueprint platform and MPA network for MPA managers for successful co-management of MPA issues, including identification, categorisation, management, governance and corridor integration. The Living Labs established in the AA basin will validate the effective operation of the platform, network and corridors.
PHAROS Objective 5: Fishers and citizens as Guardians and Cleaners of the sea to address ocean pollution - Partnering with NETTAGPlus and others, PHAROS will transform the societal perspectives about the role of fishers by engaging, training and assisting them to become ocean guardians. The impact will be reducing the introduction of hazardous chemicals and microplastics originated from Abandoned, Lost, Discarded fishing gear (termed ALDFG); reducing ghost fishing, bycatch and entanglements of sensitive or endangered species on ALDFG; and improving mapping, tracking and recovery technologies to retrieve ALDFG. Further, citizens will be trained and supported to become litter entrepreneurs leveraging and extending the REMEDIES project.
PHAROS Objective 6: Education to ensure that the next generation continues the Mission – Partnering with project PROBLEU to expand and support the Network of European Blue Schools, attract a wide diversity of new members, improve ocean literacy across school communities.
PHAROS Objective 7: All PHAROS results and data will be interoperate with local Digital Twins of the Ocean, enabling data exploration, research, participation and citizen science. PHAROS will develop high sophisticate DTO for G2 demo sites and integrate in the Climarest and Blue4All platforms. Leveraging off OPUS project to implement best practice Open Science.
1. (Mission Obj. 1); protecting and restoring marine ecosystems and biodiversity
2. (Mission Obj. 2); preventing and eliminating pollution of our ocean
3. (Mission Obj. 3): making the sustainable blue economy carbon-neutral and circular by 2030.
PHAROS Objective 1: Citizen and other stakeholder engagement and co-creation - For all objectives, citizen and other relevant stakeholder engagement will occur through local Living Labs from the start and throughout. This will ensure the specific Mission societal challenges are tackled with the project systemic solutions, leading to societal transformations and social impact. Linking and leveraging with RRING and GRRIP project and Communities.
Objective 2: Highly innovative Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for ecosystem and biodiversity restoration. PHAROS will demonstrate Integrated multitrophic and reef habitat restoration in 3 demo sites in the EU OM islands, and produce Replication plans for associated regions.
PHAROS Objective 3: A specific Arctic focus, recognising its growing and urgent importance due to its vulnerability to external stressors including global warming and pollution – extending the ECOTIP project relating to invasive species using eDNA monitoring, consisting of one demo and Replication plans.
PHAROS Objective 4: Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and Ecological corridors management – Cooperating with the BLUE4ALL project in extending the Blueprint platform and MPA network for MPA managers for successful co-management of MPA issues, including identification, categorisation, management, governance and corridor integration. The Living Labs established in the AA basin will validate the effective operation of the platform, network and corridors.
PHAROS Objective 5: Fishers and citizens as Guardians and Cleaners of the sea to address ocean pollution - Partnering with NETTAGPlus and others, PHAROS will transform the societal perspectives about the role of fishers by engaging, training and assisting them to become ocean guardians. The impact will be reducing the introduction of hazardous chemicals and microplastics originated from Abandoned, Lost, Discarded fishing gear (termed ALDFG); reducing ghost fishing, bycatch and entanglements of sensitive or endangered species on ALDFG; and improving mapping, tracking and recovery technologies to retrieve ALDFG. Further, citizens will be trained and supported to become litter entrepreneurs leveraging and extending the REMEDIES project.
PHAROS Objective 6: Education to ensure that the next generation continues the Mission – Partnering with project PROBLEU to expand and support the Network of European Blue Schools, attract a wide diversity of new members, improve ocean literacy across school communities.
PHAROS Objective 7: All PHAROS results and data will be interoperate with local Digital Twins of the Ocean, enabling data exploration, research, participation and citizen science. PHAROS will develop high sophisticate DTO for G2 demo sites and integrate in the Climarest and Blue4All platforms. Leveraging off OPUS project to implement best practice Open Science.
Part 1 Living Labs
The first 12 months of the project in RP1 were concerned with two main tasks:
The following is an update of the progress of each of the 3 Demonstration Living Labs in the 1st 12 months:
1. Gran Canaria demo- led by PLOCAN and CMC:
2. Ireland demo- led by MTU and BMRS
3. Iceland demo - led by DTU
5 Replication sites Living Labs wrere also selected in the 1st 12 months:
Part 2 - three Demonstrations
Gran Canaria Demo
• In month 6, project management had a strategic meeting with the fishing (PESCA) and coastal (COSTAS) authorities to discuss how best to submit the permit application.
o The two demonstration sites in Gran Canaria will be merged into one demonstration site
o Demo 2, which consists of the artificial reefs, would be moved and merged with Demo 1, which is the IMTA.
o The merged Demo 1 and Demo 1 site would be called the ‘Gran Canaria Demo’. The Demo would be at the deeper water site of 45 meters.
Ireland Demo
The Irish demo is led by partner BMRS located in the southwest coast of Ireland.
The following is a summary of the Irish demonstration in the 1st 12 months.
- First trial started in late 2024
- Seeding and line deployment in November 2024
- Harvesting in April 2025
- Sample and water analysis from may till September 2025.
Iceland Demo
In 2025, The ESP eDNA sensor was shipped and transported from Copenhagen DTU and arrived at site in June 2025. The sensor was deployed in time before the arrival of the biannual pink salmon arrival due for that summer. The sensor operated from June 2025 till September 2025.
The first 12 months of the project in RP1 were concerned with two main tasks:
The following is an update of the progress of each of the 3 Demonstration Living Labs in the 1st 12 months:
1. Gran Canaria demo- led by PLOCAN and CMC:
2. Ireland demo- led by MTU and BMRS
3. Iceland demo - led by DTU
5 Replication sites Living Labs wrere also selected in the 1st 12 months:
Part 2 - three Demonstrations
Gran Canaria Demo
• In month 6, project management had a strategic meeting with the fishing (PESCA) and coastal (COSTAS) authorities to discuss how best to submit the permit application.
o The two demonstration sites in Gran Canaria will be merged into one demonstration site
o Demo 2, which consists of the artificial reefs, would be moved and merged with Demo 1, which is the IMTA.
o The merged Demo 1 and Demo 1 site would be called the ‘Gran Canaria Demo’. The Demo would be at the deeper water site of 45 meters.
Ireland Demo
The Irish demo is led by partner BMRS located in the southwest coast of Ireland.
The following is a summary of the Irish demonstration in the 1st 12 months.
- First trial started in late 2024
- Seeding and line deployment in November 2024
- Harvesting in April 2025
- Sample and water analysis from may till September 2025.
Iceland Demo
In 2025, The ESP eDNA sensor was shipped and transported from Copenhagen DTU and arrived at site in June 2025. The sensor was deployed in time before the arrival of the biannual pink salmon arrival due for that summer. The sensor operated from June 2025 till September 2025.
In RP1 and within the 1st 12 months the majority of the project is still in preparation and design phase.
There are only two parts of the project that were able to implement and achieve results within the 1st 12 months. These were the trial one in Ireland and trial one in Iceland.
Trial one in Ireland in 2024/25, partner BMRS deployed seeded macroalgae lines in the pilot site in Bantry bay, southern Ireland in 2024 October and harvested the lines in April 2025. BMRS also deployed macro algae lines in the control site in a location further South, and also harvested the lines in April 2025. Both locations produced a bumper harvest. The pilot site produced a larger tonnage of biomass, 14kg/m, in comparison to years when the salmon farm was not in operation. This result complies with Mission Objective 2, reducing pollution, and restoring the ecosystem, demonstrating that macroalgae absorbed the nutrients from the salmon farm. Results from the isotope analysis or not received in time for RP1, which would demonstrate the direct link showing the macro algae directly absorbing nutrients from the salmon farm waste. This isotope results will be ready at RP2. Mission objective 3 is also directly demonstrated by this circular economy of macroalgae absorbing nutrients from another commercial operation. Mission Objective 1 was also demonstrated in 2 ways: via the actual increased biomass of macro algae itself, as well as samples of the macroalge taken showing that's up to 17 communities of microflora and fauna were inhabiting the macroalgae, adding to the local biodiversity of the ecosystem..
For the Iceland demo, partner DTU and Icelandic colleagues were under pressure to deploy their first pilot trial in 2025 as the biannual arrival to Iceland of the invasive pink salmon species was due in summer 2025. DTU finalised the deployment plans, as well as the transport of the eDNA ESP sensor to the selected site in Iceland just in time before the arrival of the pink salmon. The sensor was in place three days before it detected the first pink salmon. In addition, the pilot was successful in that it detected the first pink salmon arrival three weeks before local fishermen announced that they had also detected the salmon. The data and water samples from the eDNA sensor have not been fully analysed yet by DTU and are due to be published in 2026. In addition, Iceland trial 1 did not have time to install sophisticated cameras and hydrophones adding other dimensions of data to the 2025 results; these will be installed and ready for the 2027 run.
There are only two parts of the project that were able to implement and achieve results within the 1st 12 months. These were the trial one in Ireland and trial one in Iceland.
Trial one in Ireland in 2024/25, partner BMRS deployed seeded macroalgae lines in the pilot site in Bantry bay, southern Ireland in 2024 October and harvested the lines in April 2025. BMRS also deployed macro algae lines in the control site in a location further South, and also harvested the lines in April 2025. Both locations produced a bumper harvest. The pilot site produced a larger tonnage of biomass, 14kg/m, in comparison to years when the salmon farm was not in operation. This result complies with Mission Objective 2, reducing pollution, and restoring the ecosystem, demonstrating that macroalgae absorbed the nutrients from the salmon farm. Results from the isotope analysis or not received in time for RP1, which would demonstrate the direct link showing the macro algae directly absorbing nutrients from the salmon farm waste. This isotope results will be ready at RP2. Mission objective 3 is also directly demonstrated by this circular economy of macroalgae absorbing nutrients from another commercial operation. Mission Objective 1 was also demonstrated in 2 ways: via the actual increased biomass of macro algae itself, as well as samples of the macroalge taken showing that's up to 17 communities of microflora and fauna were inhabiting the macroalgae, adding to the local biodiversity of the ecosystem..
For the Iceland demo, partner DTU and Icelandic colleagues were under pressure to deploy their first pilot trial in 2025 as the biannual arrival to Iceland of the invasive pink salmon species was due in summer 2025. DTU finalised the deployment plans, as well as the transport of the eDNA ESP sensor to the selected site in Iceland just in time before the arrival of the pink salmon. The sensor was in place three days before it detected the first pink salmon. In addition, the pilot was successful in that it detected the first pink salmon arrival three weeks before local fishermen announced that they had also detected the salmon. The data and water samples from the eDNA sensor have not been fully analysed yet by DTU and are due to be published in 2026. In addition, Iceland trial 1 did not have time to install sophisticated cameras and hydrophones adding other dimensions of data to the 2025 results; these will be installed and ready for the 2027 run.