The EC-funded COMMON SENSE project held its final event in Barcelona on the 27 January 2017, attended by project partners and important stakeholders involved in European marine monitoring. The Meeting was held in the facilities of Fundació Navegació Oceànica Barcelona (FNOB), partner in the COMMON SENSE project. The full day meeting provided in-depth context on the challenges and importance of improving methods and available technology to monitor and protect our marine waters. Presentations on the specific results generated by the COMMON SENSE project preceded a live demonstration of the marine monitoring sensors generated by the project.

Sensors developed by the COMMON SENSE project can contribute towards increasing the availability of standardised data on: eutrophication; concentrations of heavy metals; micro plastic fraction within marine litter; underwater noise; and other parameters such as temperature, pH, pCO₂ and pressure. These cost-effective sensors directly respond to current marine monitoring challenges and will be a key tool for EU Member States in meeting their Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requirements and achieving Good Environmental Status (GES) of their marine territories.

Sergio Martinez, COMMON SENSE Scientific Coordinator, said: “Being able to validate what the COMMON SENSE project has achieved through a live demonstration was a momentous occasion for me as coordinator, but also for all the partners. Not only has COMMON SENSE shown that marine sensors can be developed which are cheaper, smaller and more user friendly than currently available sensors; they are also interoperable using the COMMON SENSE smart sensor unit and common web platform. This means the date provided by the sensors can be made available online in real-time regardless of the platform used to host the sensors; buoy, pier, even racing yachts.”

The COMMON SENSE partners have input significant effort over the past forty months to develop prototypes for innovative, next generation sensing technologies that will contribute to the implementation of the MSFD and therefore support the protection of the marine environment in Europe.

Prior to the COMMON SENSE final event, partners involved in sensor development spent the week in Barcelona testing and deploying their sensors in preparation for the demonstration. Within the COMMON SENSE project considerable focus was on deployment and testing, with partners rigorously testing all hardware developed to ensure that sensors’ performance is not inhibited by even the most changeable and challenging conditions. COMMON SENSE sensors underwent field testing in the Mediterranean, North, Norwegian, Baltic and Arctic seas.

For further information about COMMON SENSE, please contact the COMMON SENSE Scientific Coordinator Sergio Martinez (smartineznavas@leitat.org).