*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*

MELOA Newsletter

4th Edition
February 2022

About MELOA

MELOA is an H2020 project that aims to cover current marine observation gaps, by developing five lines of WAVY drifters - low cost and easy to handle surface drifters designed to collect marine data, from coastal to offshore zones.

Learn More

MELOA project is coming to an end…what’s next?

MELOA project is coming to an end by the end of February 2022. Throughout these 4 years of project, the MELOA team worked intensely to develop a family of WAVY drifters, from smaller drifters designed for beach and surf zone studies, to larger drifters tailored for coastal and long-term open ocean observations. In parallel, the team prepared a complete set of software and mobile applications to facilitate the deployment of the WAVY drifters and the exploitation of the data collected.

The team is extremely proud with the project’s achievements, and it's now excited to take hold of the future market opportunities for the family of WAVY drifters and the data products providing valuable data to address a wide variety of maritime research areas. The project results have been shared in a final user workshop, in a unique opportunity to engage with the MELOA community and learn more about the WAVY drifters.

The WAVY Drifters Family is ready to be deployed

In this last year of project, the team was able to successfully conclude the development of the WAVY Ocean, which has been tested for several use cases, and it is now nearly ready for production. The WAVY drifters family is now composed of tree drifters that have been tested and demonstrated in many campaigns: the WAVY Basic, the WAVY Littoral, and the WAVY Ocean.

Updated user interfaces and a new mobile app

The MELOA Geoportal and Data Catalogue user interfaces have been updated to present a more user friendly interface, and offer new features to easily explore the data products available. In addition, the MELOA team launched the WAVY Citizen App, designed to show (near) real time WAVY data collected during public campaigns in a user-friendly interface.

Generating valuable in-situ data to address different use cases

The year of 2021 was also marked by the preparation of the final WAVY Test Campaigns, enabling the validation of meaningful case studies for the WAVY drifters.

The WAVY Test Campaigns that took place in Ireland, Portugal and Spain, allowed us to demonstrate the versatility of the WAVY drifters, contributing to study safety at public beaches, citizen science, among others.

This included innovative campaigns such has supporting SheCanDo’s Karen Weekes to deploy a WAVY Ocean in the sub-equatorial North Atlantictic, and a WAVY Test Campaign in La Palma, Canary Islands, to collect ocean data contributing to study the effects of the Cumbre Vieja's lava and a WAVY Ocean deployment in the near equatorial Atlantic, to support the Portuguese Navy's Operation "Mar Aberto".

Disseminating results in international events and workshops

During 2021, the MELOA team participated in several international conferences and workshops, such as the 9th EuroGOOS International Conference, and the Marthec Workshop! In such events, the team had the chance to actively promote the WAVY drifters and engage with potential users and other stakeholders within ocean observing and monitoring communities.

By the end of the project, MELOA organized a user workshop to present the project final results and the family of WAVY drifters that is now available to be deployed.

Get involved!

If you are interested in exploring the WAVY drifters, please contact us via [email protected] or by filling out the contact form below.

In addition, MELOA team is conducting a survey to get more information about the marine community needs in terms of in-situ technologies, so together we can extend and improve the current in situ ocean observing and monitoring systems. We would greatly appreciate your input by filling out the following survey.

Contact Form