The Port Authority of the Bay of Algeciras (APBA) installed, last Thursday 5th December, six biomimetic micro-reefs of the Spanish startup Ocean Ecostructures called Life Boosting Units (LBU) in the quay of the Paseo Marítimo de Ribera in the Llano Amarillo. The aim of this installation, framed within the institution’s Green Strategy, is to measure the effectiveness of these artificial micro-reefs in enhancing biodiversity, renaturalising and revitalising the port area, promoting environmental improvement, increasing water quality, promoting bioremediation and early detection of invasive species. The local company Conteymar was entrusted with the task of attaching the structures to the vertical wall of the quay.
The micro-reefs are designed to be installed on marine structures, replicating how natural reefs function. They have proprietary technology and create complex and resilient ecosystems in a short time. Through a microfauna attraction system, natural substrate to maximise life capture and a design to generate a nursery effect, they facilitate the growth of fish and crustaceans.
The collaborative project also drives impact mitigation and facilitates the communication of its results. The six units have been installed with on-site validation by Ocean Ecostructures’ scientific team, so they will be used to test the effectiveness of the technology and assess the feasibility of expanding the programme to other locations.
In order to measure the impact and know the results of the initiative, a robotic monitoring system using underwater drones will measure the results according to the following parameters: kilograms of biomass generated, number of new species hosted and CO2 captured. In addition, the company in charge uses Artificial Intelligence to periodically generate advanced data reports, reports that can be consulted in the Ocean Ecostructures application.
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