HAB Risk: Demonstration of a surveillance and drift forecasts service for algal blooms in the Baltic Sea.

The aim of the HAB Risk project is to set up a demonstration service on a Web and mobile platform to support monitoring of cyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea.

The development of this service is supported and funded by MERCATOR OCEAN, under the program of development and promotion of demonstrations of the downstream services Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS).

Widely distributed around the globe, cyanobacteria grows in marine and fresh waters in colonies large enough to be seen from space. The excessive algal populations characterizing such blooms, or sometimes the association of toxicity with particular species, are potentially harmful to ecosystems and environment, hence their name, harmful algal blooms (HABs). As an example, HABs affects invertebrates and fishes and frequently lead to the closure of recreational waters.

Considering the combination of the adverse impacts of cyanobacteria on aquatic systems that may in turn affect various economic sectors and develop major public health issues, the development of large scale monitoring tool of cyanobacterial blooms is expected to benefit local population, tourism, and aquaculture. In the Baltic Sea, summer Green Blue Algae (GBA) blooms regularly occur. Either toxic or not, they are considered as a major issue.

HAB Risk provides daily and forecast of cyanobacteria maps and of the evaluation of the risk of occurrence of Harmful Algal Bloom events.

Near Real Time (NRT) monitoring and twice-daily drift forecasting of the cyanobacterial blooms are obtained with the use of CMEMS products and integration of model analysis. Then, the calculated bloom observations and analysis are translated into high added value information (bloom location, intensity, possible harmfulness).

Designed to be complementary to already existing observation systems, our service first targets final economic stakeholders, public and private managers and also scientists, with the aim of providing NRT HAB Risk assessments (including confidence levels). Web Platform and Mobile App will serve the diffusion of the derived maps and alerts.

Partners of the project are i-Sea (prime), Planetek, N7 mobile and Hydro Cote.

HAB Risk web application is implemented exploiting the Rheticus® platform and powered by CMEMS.