First test at sea of the European project ARGOMARINE successfully completed by NURC in La Spezia

A new system capable of raising a real-time alarm in case of oil spill in the Mediterranean will be ready by 2012.

The early stage of the European project  

ARGOMARINE (Automatic Oil Spill Recognition and Geopositioning integrated in a Marine Monitoring Network – www.argomarine.eu) has come to an end on May 6 at  NURC in  La Spezia,  with the completion of the first at-sea test. This  3 year project aims at creating an  integrated system dedicated to the monitoring of the marine environment for oil spills.  Like the  mythological dog Argo,  who was endowed with hundred  eyes, open day and night,  ARGOMARINE is intended to develop new technologies capable of constantly monitoring our seas and giving a real-time  alert in case of hydrocarbon spill in the Mediterranean, with particular attention given to the more vulnerable areas from an environmental and security point of view.   As part of the project’s Mid-Term Steering Committee meeting, scientists from the nine project partners (which from Italy include NURC, the Tuscan Archipelago National Park and CNR), have conducted a joint experiment of the instruments developed date. The instruments tested include: hearing sensors and autonomous vehicles, that will act in synergy with satellites, radar stations and sophisticated computers. As part of the test the unauthorized access of a craft with the potential to cause an oil spill was simulated.  In the next phase of the project, the system will be enriched with new sensors, “electronic noses” able to “sniff” and catalogue the emissions coming from oil spill. These sensors will be installed on floats and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

“NURC and the Tuscan Archipelago National  Park have been cooperating for many years now to activities of environmental interest” said  Edoardo Bovio, NURC Business Development Manager.  ”NURC is proud of the achievements  obtained by the ARGOMARINE consortium which will transfer in the civilian field technologies deleloped for military purposes”. 

The ARGOMARINE project, which was chosen in 2009 from 350 proposals is funded through the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. With 3.3 million euros in funding, the partners will work together to minimize pollution risks in the overcrowded Mediterranean basin, where every year 60 significant accidents occur, 15 of them characterized by hydrocarbon spills at sea (PNAT data).