Closing Remarks After Four Years of Transforming Lagoon Management
After starting in 2020 under the Horizon 2020 program, SMARTLAGOON has now reached its conclusion. Over four years of intense and dedicated work, the project has pushed the boundaries of innovation to address the challenges facing the Mar Menor lagoon. The greatest achievement of SMARTLAGOON has been the development of a digital twin of the Mar Menor, a groundbreaking virtual model that integrates geospatial, climatic, and social data. This digital twin allows stakeholders to simulate and predict environmental scenarios, providing invaluable insights for decision-making and sustainable management. This achievement reflects the project’s core mission: combining technology, science, and community engagement to predict socio-environmental evolution and...
Engaging children in environmental education activities: the Sketchlagoon data visualization tool
As part of our dissemination, communication, and exploitation activities, we look for ways to engage communities and spread knowledge about the challenges that the Mar Menor lagoon is facing. Our latest tool is Sketchlagoon, an interactive application designed to raise awareness about environmental issues through children’s art and conversational generative AI. In particular, Sketchlagoon offers a fresh and engaging way to learn about saltwater lagoons and their significance, taking users on a journey that begins with an exploration of the importance of saltwater lagoons globally, narrowing in on the Mar Menor and the role of the SMARTLAGOON initiative in its preservation. Two screens of...
Sharing Insights at CARLA 2024 – Advancing Coastal Lagoon Management with HPC
On October 3, 2024, Dr. José M. Cecilia had the privilege of being a keynote speaker at the 11th Latin America High-Performance Computing Conference (CARLA 2024), held from September 30 to October 4 in Santiago, Chile. CARLA has established itself as the premier venue in Latin America for fostering innovation and collaboration within the High-Performance Computing (HPC) community. The event brought together brilliant minds from around the world, showcasing the intersection of HPC, Artificial Intelligence, and their transformative applications. CARLA’s reputation as a hub for cutting-edge research and exchange of ideas was evident through an impressive lineup of keynotes and invited talks. Experts like Marta...
SMARTLAGOON at the 2024 European Researchers’ Night
The European Researchers' Night is an annual event that takes place in hundreds of cities across Europe, aimed at bringing science closer to the public through interactive activities like experiments, talks, and exhibitions. Funded by the EU, it engages people of all ages, promoting science education, fostering public understanding of how research addresses global challenges and impacts everyday life, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in research. On September 27, we were excited to present our latest prototype at the 2024 edition of the European Researchers' Night in Cesena, organized by the University of Bologna at the Malatesta Library, near the Cesena Campus. The...
SMARTLAGOON at the RAMONES Summer School on Environmental Intelligence
Last July, the Environmental Summer School of the RAMONES project, held from July 3rd to 7th, 2024, took place in Methana, Greece. Part of the SMARTLAGOON team attended the school at the invitation of the RAMONES team. The event focused on the monitoring of radioactivity in marine ecosystems and brought together around 30 participants from different scientific disciplines and backgrounds, including students, professors and research professionals. The opening session of the Summer School was chaired by Theodoros Mertzimekis and Eleni Petra, both from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). Together with the representatives of the municipality, including the Mayor of Troizinia-Methana, Mr Tasos Mougios,...
SMARTLAGOON 2024 Annual Meeting
During the last week of June, the SMARTLAGOON team gathered together at the UCAM HiTech Innovation hub for the 2024 annual meeting. This was the occasion to discuss the project's progress, address pending issues, and plan future activities as the project comes closer to its conclusion. Here is a recap of the meeting's key sessions and discussions. Monday, June 24 SMARTLAGOON Project Status After an official welcome session, an overview of the project's status was presented, highlighting significant milestones achieved and outlining the objectives for the last months of the project. Mar Menor - Erken Lake Monitoring The monitoring activities for Mar Menor and Erken Lake were reviewed, focusing...
Highlights from the II Environmental Intelligence Summer School
SMARTLAGOON and WATCHPlant are delighted to announce that the II Environmental Intelligence Summer School, held from June 19th to 21st, 2024, at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), was a tremendous success. The event, dedicated to the digitalization of natural environments, brought together more than 45 enthusiastic students from diverse backgrounds, all eager to explore the latest advancements in environmental intelligence. The event kicked off with an inspiring opening ceremony attended by key figures from both the SMARTLAGOON and WATCHPlant projects. Laura García Carmona, Belén Picó Sirvent, Alfredo Quijano, Javier Senent Aparicio, and José María Cecilia Canales shared their visions and underscored the importance of...
Environmental Intelligence Summer School
Second edition of the International School in the field of Ambient Intelligence, dedicated to the digitisation of natural environments. The event aims to provide society with a vision of the different approaches to the natural environment in terms of access to useful information using new tools. The event will take place on 19, 20 and 21 June 2024, at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Edificio E (escuela técnica superior informática), organised in cooperation with the WATCHPLANT and SMARTLAGOON project. Program Wednesday 19th June 9:00 Opening Belén Picó Sirvent (Researcher vice rector at The Technical University of Valencia, UPV) Laura García Carmona (WATCHPLANT project coordinator. Head of Biosensor and Biofuel cells...
Unlocking the Future of Coastal Lagoon Monitoring with the Mar Menor Case Study
In the face of mounting environmental pressures, the monitoring of coastal ecosystems has never been more crucial. Coastal lagoons, dynamic and rich in biodiversity, are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic impacts. The Mar Menor lagoon in Murcia, Spain, stands as a poignant example of such a system under siege, primarily due to the eutrophication process spurred by excessive nutrient inputs. This backdrop sets the stage for a groundbreaking study recently published as part of the SMARTLAGOON project, titled "Assessment of oceanographic services for the monitoring of highly anthropised coastal lagoons: The Mar Menor case study". This research sheds light on the current challenges faced in...
SMARTLAGOON modeling workshop in Oslo
In March 2024, the modeling work packages convened for a two-day session in Oslo hosted by NIVA to explore the integration of socio-economic and environmental models—this effort aimed to enhance understanding of the connections between human activities and natural systems. The meeting brought together the socio-economic system dynamics (SD) model with the catchment model (SWAT) and the lagoon model (GOTM) to brainstorm strategies for integration. While socio-economic models delve into human behaviors, decision-making processes, and economic activities, environmental models simulate climate dynamics, land use changes, and ecosystem functions. Despite the challenge of creating a computational coupling, we devised alternative ways by providing boundary conditions...