IMPAQT 

What is the project about?  

Develop a remote, intelligent management system that monitors an aquaculture, or sea farm, from a distance. Special sensors measure the conditions at sea and communicate with the management system. 

 

 

 

Why is this important? 

Remote management systems are crucial for making aquaculture commercially viable and move towards fact-based circular sea farms. The concept of aquaculture is based on a combination of producing and extracting species, like shellfish and seaweed. These species form a nutrient cycle, part of the a circular farm. The more efficient the cycle, the better the yield, the higher the commercial value. To create an optimal cycle, as well as to act on it when necessary, a farmers needs to know how the nutrient levels in the system are behaving. The sensors at sea measure the nutrients from a distance and communicate these measurements with the management system, enabling the farmer to see the conditions in his/her sea farm onshore. This kind of system unburdens the farmer from the travel expenses and enables real-time data.    

What were the objectives? 

  • Realize the theory of intelligent measuring in real-time sea farms to create circular farms with closed nutrient loops 
  • Develop a computer model for Intelligent Management Systems for Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) to simulate the performance of measurements and see how and if the model works 
  • Develop a usable IMTA management system for the aquatic farmer, some sort of dashboard program to monitor the farm from home 

What did we do in this project? 

North Sea Farmers performs the pilot for developing the IMTA management system.  

What are the results? 

Our activities are still in the piloting phase. More results can be found at https://impaqtproject.eu/our-results/ 

Who else were involved? 

Tyndall National Institute (IR), The Marine Institute (IR), WINGS ICT Solutions (GR), The Agricultural University of Athens (GR), Harokopio University (GR), INTRASOFT International (LUX), NETAS etas Telekomünikasyon A.Ş (TUR), Dokuz Eylul University Marine Science and Technology (TUR), Çamlı Yem Besicilik (TUR), Easy Global Market (FR), ARGANS (UK), The Open University (UK), Scottish Association for Marinescience (UK), The Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (PL), LEITAT (ES), Galician Enterprise University Foundation (ES), The University of Rome Torvergata (IT), UNPARALLEL (POR), Deltares (NL), Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute (China) 

Finance: €5,8 million for 3 years 
Fund: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 774109
Partners: 21 partners from 12 different EU countries 
Time: 05/2018 – 2021 
Contact: Eef 
Website: https://impaqtproject.eu/  

Photo header: IMPAQT site