The Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) has awarded Fugro a contract to deliver the offshore wave and current measurement network (rete ondametrica e correntometrica d’altura (ROCA)) for Italy’s marine and coastal ecosystems.
The two-year project will be executed with Italian partners Poliservizi and Prisma. The ROCA network will also include two seabed tsunami early-warning stations in the Sardinian Channel and the South Ionian Sea.
The contract is part of ISPRA’s Marine Ecosystem Restoration (MER) Project, an initiative under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, that aims to restore the marine habitats, fortify the national system for observing marine and coastal ecosystems, and comprehensively map coastal and marine habitats across Italian waters.
While Fugro’s Italian partners will manage most of the marine operations and service work, Fugro will design the buoys’ mooring systems, and install and operate the ROCA network.
This comprises the provision and installation of an 11-buoy monitoring network, in water depths of 210 to 3,000 metres throughout Italian waters, including the Adriatic, South Ionian, Tyrrhenian and Ligurian seas.
Once installed, the buoys will continuously measure and transmit real-time geo-data on metocean parameters such as wave height and direction, current velocity profiles, air temperature and pressure, and wind speed and direction.
The buoys are equipped with a redundant two-way satellite communication system, enabling communication with the new data-receiving centre that will be set up for ISPRA.
The geo-data will support large-scale action for the protection and restoration of the Mediterranean’s seabed and marine habitats to protect biodiversity and promote the sustainability of activities such as fishing, tourism and growth of the blue economy.
