Early Warning System And Mobile App For Marine Pollution Prevention

Abstract

The Interreg ADRION project SEA VIEWS (SEctor Adaptive VIrtual Early Warning System for marine pollution), emphasizes the importance of developing an early warning system for preventing and mitigating marine pollution from various sources. Seawater quality is a key factor in different sectors, from tourism to mariculture, thus proper monitoring and real-time response to pollution have an important role in its obtaining. The paper presents the SEA VIEWS project by stages. The first step of the project was establishing a transnational network of multiparameter probes, installed across the Adriatic - Ionian Sea. The network enabled the collection of data on 9 different parameters and created the foundations for the development of an early warning system for marine pollution. The next step was creating a mobile application, which will engage the general public in the fight against marine pollution. The paper presents the recently developed mobile application “SEA VIEWERS” and provides guidelines for its use. The data collected via the network ofprobes and reports sent by the mobile application create a wide database easily located on the SEA VIEWS platform. Therefore, the data can be accessed by all the project partners (Greece, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania and Montenegro) and used for evaluating the water quality deviations across the Adriatic - Ionian area. The overall goal of the developed early warning system is to improve current regulations for the protection of the marine environment and to ensure the quality of seawater.