Abstract

The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climate change hot spot, being their socio-economically vital coastal areas the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, High-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining recognition as an effective land-based remote sensing technology for a continuous monitoring of the surface circulation, increasingly waves and occasionally winds. HFR measurements have boosted the thorough scientific knowledge of coastal processes, also fostering a broad range of applications, which has promoted their integration in the Coastal Ocean Observing Systems worldwide, with more than half of the European sites located in the Mediterranean coastal areas. In this work, we present a review of existing HFR data multidisciplinary science-based applications in the Mediterranean Sea, primarily focused on meeting end-users and science-driven requirements, addressing regional challenges in three main topics: i) maritime safety; ii) extreme hazards; iii) environmental transport process. Additionally, the HFR observing and monitoring regional capabilities in the Mediterranean region required to underpin the underlying science and the further development of applications are also analyzed. The outcome of this assessment has allowed us to finally provide a set of recommendations for the future improvement prospects to maximize the contribution in extending the science-based HFR products into societal relevant downstream services to support the blue growth in the Mediterranean coastal areas, helping to meet the UN’s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the EU’s Green Deal goals.

Highlights

  • Coastal monitoring to support Blue Growth in the Mediterranean SeaThe coastal and ocean economy has been since ancient times and is nowadays, more than ever, the backbone of the Mediterranean countries’ blue economy

  • Demonstrating the potential of the High-frequency radars (HFRs) observing and monitoring regional capabilities, this work reviews the existing advanced and emerging scientific and societal applications using HFR data, developed to address the major challenges identified in the Mediterranean coastal waters, organized around three main topics: i) maritime safety; ii) extreme hazards and iii) environmental transport processes

  • We present a review of the existing advanced and emerging scientific and societal applications using HFR data, developed to address the major challenges identified in the Mediterranean coastal waters, organized around three main topics: i) maritime safety; ii) extreme hazards and iii) environmental transport processes

Read more

Summary

Coastal monitoring to support Blue Growth in the Mediterranean Sea

The coastal and ocean economy has been since ancient times and is nowadays, more than ever, the backbone of the Mediterranean countries’ blue economy. 4 provides a set of recommendations towards setting out future prospects, aiming to maximize the contribution in the provision of the required data products and benefits needed by the socio-economically vital and often environmentally stressed coastal risk-prone areas of the Mediterranean Sea This contribution will help to overcome the challenges of the United Nations (UN’s) Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and to address the transitional changes required towards the European Green Deal.

Maritime Safety
Search and Rescue
Short Term Predictions
Environmental Transport Processes
Pollution and floatables tracking
Eddy tracking
Future prospects for HFR applications and recommendations
Summary and conclusions
Findings
Code availability
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call